


The Hunt

by RedPen (GardenVatiety)



Series: Of Salt and Steel [3]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood and Violence, F/M, Falling In Love, FuckingEvilVillain, Intrigue, Love, Pirates, Romance, Swearing, hidden love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 15:03:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 85,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11762418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GardenVatiety/pseuds/RedPen
Summary: Basking in the glow of their flaring love, burning brightly but secretly, Commodore Judith Hopps and Lieutenant Nick Wilde set course for the bitter cold of Bersei, tasked with bringing the savage pirate, the Blackwolf, to swift, single-minded justice. With three rated ships at her command and a plan to catch her foe unawares, she is in high spirits.She should not be. The frost-bitten northern sea is not her territory. Her enemy is no craven. The hunters will become the hunted.





	1. The Locked Chest

 

Captain Loric was not a superstitious mammal.

He’d never really believed that there was luck to be had in carrying around blessed trinkets and amulets. He’d never wished for good fortune on a four-leaved clover. He spat on sailor’s talk that a falling star signalled a blessed voyage.

He didn’t even put stock in sailor’s folklore, like the tradition of the Blackcoin -- often Loric had laughed that if on his deathbed, should the Ferrymammal prove to be such a miser that he’d turn him away for want of payment, then he’d rather be damned. He’d sooner sail the Dead Ship than spend eternity in the company of a bunch of boorish celestial skinflints.

Loric was a mammal of certainties.

It was this unerring attitude that had brought the toughened goat, with his flint-hard stare and burgundy coat, to the attention of the merchant-lord Pomeroy, who was adamant that his lucrative business with Bersei would continue unimpacted, even if the Blackwolf was chasing down every Zoohaven ship he could get his paws on and breaking them into pieces. He was willing to pay the drastic increase in fees demanded to see his cargo sailed across the Latara, although there were fewer and fewer private captains willing to take the risk.

Loric had been among the refusers initially, but then he had seen the down-payment on offer; more than he could ever have hoped to earn for a single trip in days of lesser peril, and the promise of the same payment, twice over, waiting for him when he returned.

That sort of gold could buy a lot of blessed trinkets.

It was such a trinket -- an amulet, wrought from Ja’karian gold, which was said to bring good luck -- that he held in his paws now, turning it over in his fingers. _Maybe the stories about lucky gold are so much foxshit_ , he thought. _But maybe they aren’t, and maybe we need all the help we can get._

 He kept his eyes on the oily winter fog that had rolled in to consume the _Lupercia_. Loric was no great fan of sailing in the mist. He liked to be able to see where he was going, to see all that lay between him and the horizon, and this fog was so dense that he began to worry they would crash right into the docks at Tor-Shumar -- their current destination, and their last port stop before they reached the Berseisian capital of Rukatov.

There could be any number of dangers lurking unseen in the mist, as well. Reavers. Slavers. And one black-sailed ship in particular.

But he knew it wasn’t luck that one needed to master such dangers -- skill, patience and attention were the better resources. Take Lord Pomeroy, for example; he had not trusted the safety of his cargo -- 2,500 muaras’ worth of spice, oils and cut gemstones -- to something as flimsy as luck. All of it, every item of even scant value, had been locked up in huge, steel-banded chests of smoked ebonywood which were bolted immovably to the hold’s floor. You could set off a bomb next to such a chest and do no more than scorch it. The keys were, at that moment, en route to Bersei, flown by a courier who was in little danger of being snatched by pirates.

It was a clever ploy; once word circulated that any ship flying Pomeroy’s colours wasn’t worth attacking, the brigands from here to the Wastes would pursue other, more promising, targets.

And in the meantime, if the outlaws found them in this unnavigable murk and set upon them, and if they could not fight them off, Loric had one hidden guarantee against his life. A trick up his sleeve; something he had not left up to luck.

Skill, patience, attention. And, when needs demanded it, deceit.

The clop of boots on wood caught his attention, and he turned to find his first mate, an Okapi by the name of Emier, approaching. He had the haggard look of a mammal torn between exhaustion and fretful alertness.

“The helmsmammal says the wind is dropping,” he reported. “He wants to stick to the same route, but he reckons we’re looking at an extra half-day’s sailing.”

Loric shrugged his acceptance. “Can’t be helped. We can’t control the wind, any more than we can shoo away this bloody grey soup.”

“It’s an unnatural fog,” Emier muttered, staring into the impenetrable mist. “A foul omen.”

“What is it? Ghosts’ farts? Don’t come to me with that shit,” Loric said sharply. He turned the gold amulet over in his paw.

“I always thought I’d die at sea,” Emier continued. “Even hoped for it, in a strange way. But not at the paws of some black-furred mad dog for the benefit of some pampered lord’s profit margins. That’s no way to shuffle off.”

“You’ve been paid well. We all have. And we weren’t paid well to piss our breeches in fear. Go and check that the Watch isn’t slacking off; whip them if they are. If the Blackwolf does arrive, we’ll be fools if we’re not ready.”

Emier offered a rough bow, an imitation of discipline, and went to his task.

Loric sighed and turned back to the blunted view, the few hundred feet that didn’t vanish into the fog’s embrace. He found himself thinking back to his days as a sergeant in the Zoohaven militia, far in the country’s northern province of Bousarc. Sometimes he wished for the regimented certainty of the military, the assurance that failure and cowardice bought nothing but swift reprisal.

But really, soldiers weren’t driven by duty. They were driven by gold, just like everyone else, and those driven by gold would desert once the cost rose too high. He had.

Suddenly, something in the mist brought him from his reverie, and he stared with narrowed eyes. What was that? A shape? Something imagined?

His eyes grew wide when a shapeless shadow began to emerge, to grow and take form, and that form was a sail, trailing from a mast. It bore a wolf skull.

Behind him, a cry went up from the mammals on watch, and the bell sounded to summon the crew to arms.

“Saint’s mercy…” Loric hissed under his breath.

 

 

The Blackwolf sheathed his bloodied sword and strode towards the bow of the ship, splashing through red puddles as he went. The dead crew of the _Lupercia_ lay all around, staring goggle-eyed at nothing, tongues lolling from open mouths. It was strange, the Blackwolf thought, how often death inflicted one final indignity on the souls it came to claim, freezing a look of perfect stupidity upon their faces. He should know; it was a look he had seen more times than could be counted.

Silas Rourke was large and muscular, built for cruelty; he was five feet from ear to toe, broad of chest and arm from years at the pirate’s murderous graft. As his alias suggested, his fur was as black as molasses, as black as night under a new moon, and he matched his fur with a dark longcoat that likewise ate up the light. There was a plum sash about his waist, from which protruded a brace of stolen pistols. He wore no hat -- no cocked cavalier with ostentatious plumage, as was the custom amongst some pirates. His conceits to vanity were the braids of his long neck fur, woven through with silk and silver, that chimed as he walked.

And most notable of all, peering out from the shadow of his countenance, were his eyes; brilliant amber, bright as the midday sun. Eyes that watched everything, and never showed so much as a glint of pity.

He took the steps up to the forecastle, where some of his crew stood waiting. They were all hardy Berseisian hounds with grey-fur and snub muzzles. Hard mammals, proved in the crucible of the north’s relentless, brutal snow. They stood encircling the lone survivor of the _Lupercia_ ; the captain. He was unarmed -- his sword lay at his feet, abandoned the very moment it was clear that defeat was a certainty. Loric was a mammal of certainties.

The Blackwolf came to a halt and looked Loric up and down. The goat, clinging to some sort of gold pendant, was shaking slightly, the tremble of one who knew they were within death’s circumference. But he held the Blackwolf’s stare, and he had not yet begged for mercy, for which he deserved some credit.

“My name is Silas Rourke. The Blackwolf. Captain of the _Predator_ ,” said the wolf, giving Loric the slightest of bows. He spoke the Common Tongue well, with only a hint of the Berseisian burr lurking at the edges. It was a measured, dangerous voice, as cold as a winter frost.

There was a pause, and when he realised it was expected he return the pleasantry, Loric said, “Loric Alturo. Captain of the _Lupercia_ , and ward of the goods of Lord Pomeroy.”

The Blackwolf nodded. “Now, the greetings are finished, and I’ve no further use or interest in you. How do you want to die?”

A jolt of icy fear raced down Loric’s spine, but he summoned all his wits, fought the terror back, and said, “Who among your crew has been below deck?”

Silas grinned, flashing his needle-sharp fangs. “What are you hoping for, Loric? That you can somehow weasel your way out of this?”

“It’s no ploy,” Loric stated firmly, casting a nervous glance at the nearby crew of wolves, their swords still drawn, waiting for the order. “I say again; who’s been below?”

Entertained, Silas cocked his head and said, “Vilka. Come here.”

A stout wolf, grey and peppered with ginger streaks, presented himself.

“Captain.”

“What did you find when you searched the hold?”

“Treasure, Captain.”

“And how was it stored?” Loric pressed.

Vilka shot him a glance. “In locked chests.”

Loric nodded. “Chests of hardened wood and forged steel. You could never hope to breach them, not here. They are also, all of them, bolted to a metal plate on the floor -- I’m sure your wolf noticed that, too. The key is being sent separately, as we speak; it has probably already reached its destination. You could sail this ship to a safe place, and work the chests open there, but I’ve seen to it that the steering is disabled, and it’s no quick task to mend it. You’ve taken this ship for nothing.”

Silas’ interest in the captain began to wane, and he gave him an unimpressed look. “A shame.”

“I’ve surrendered my sword, and have no further weapons. With your permission, I’ll reach into my coat and show you the goods manifest, so you can be certain these chests are not empty.”

Silas nodded his approval, and Loric slowly reached into the recesses of his coat and withdrew a sheet of parchment, stamped with the seal of Pomeroy’s house. Vilka stepped forward, taking the manifest and reading it aloud.

“Two tonnes of anise. Two of cinnamon, two of mustard seed. One-and-a-half tonnes of ground nutmeg. Twenty gallons of scented oil. A hundredweight each of cut emeralds, sapphires, Ja’Karian diamonds…”

“All together, there’s easily 2,500 mauras’ worth of cargo in there. That’s not a number that’s easy to dismiss, is it?”

“No,” the Blackwolf conceded, “it is not. But as you said, these chests are well secured, and the only key is far away.”

This was the moment -- the very moment that decided life and death. Loric swallowed.

“I have a copy of the key; cut in secret, before this ship left port. It is here, aboard the ship, but well-hidden -- you’ll never find it, not with a million years to search…”

The Blackwolf was still staring at him, eyes unwavering. His voice was soft when he spoke.

“What is your proposal, captain Loric?”

“Give me a lifeboat, from either of our ships, and provisions for four days. Let me row free of here. In return, I’ll give you the key, and the cargo will be yours to take.”

Silas seemed to consider the proposition, chewing his bottom lip. Loric didn’t dare look away, as if maintained eye-contact was the only thread anchoring him to life. He was still battling to keep his fearful shake under control, turning his pendant over and over in his trembling paw. But he could feel a tingle inside, a flash of confidence that soon he’d be in the clear and free to go. He could taste the hope.

Then, swift as lightning, Silas drew one of his gleaming pistols and fired it right into Loric’s chest. The noise was overwhelming on the crowded deck, a wave that lapped against Loric and reverberated into the distance. His eyes bulged in disbelief as he looked down at the smoking hole in his breast. The hope vanished, and he tasted blood instead.

Silas smiled, savouring Loric’s idiotic stare, the face of a mammal that didn’t realise he was already dead. He stepped forward, and plucked the gold amulet out of Loric’s numb paw.

“Perhaps I’ll take this one trinket instead, then,” he hissed. “It’s less fuss.”

Then he kicked Loric back against the gunwale, where he toppled over the edge and landed with a splash in the cold ocean below.

The crew let out a sadistic chorus of laughter, some mimicking the goat’s shocked expression for the amusement of others. Silas simply grinned with wicked satisfaction; that was certainly one of the better attempts he’d seen of a mammal trying to weasel out of his clutches.

He turned to Kurt, his first mate, a short and grizzled wolf with one badly tattered ear.

“Burn the ship. We have other treasure to seek”

 

 

From the outside, from the high stratosphere, one could have seen it in its entirety; a giant thunderhead, alive with the planet’s incalculable fury. It shifted between forms; a towering white tree one moment, a hive of furious insects the next. Now, an angel’s spreading wing. Now, a devil’s malevolent visage. Inside, all was black, briefly luminous with the flash of aimless and deadly lightning, deafening with the roar of the rain.

Anyone trapped in the midst of that fury would have been forgiven for thinking that this was all there was of the world -- endless darkness, all-consuming noise. They’d be forgiven for thinking things were coming to an end, that some Armageddon from ancient prophecy had come to fulfilment.

But the storm’s anger did falter further away from its centre, and it was through this tranquil tempest that three ships battled -- one mighty warship spearheading the charge, two intrepid frigates determinedly in tow.

There had been much discussion about the sense of cutting through the storm’s outer edge; the danger of a ship so much as scratched, let alone crippled or sunk, before their real enemy presented themselves. But time was of the essence -- Judith’s plan balanced delicately on their ships being in the right place at the right time -- so they committed. These were, after all, rated ships of the navy; it would shame the nation if they could be undone by mere wind and rain.

When a warship was built in Zooport’s dockyards, it was blessed by a naval chaplain. It was given a name. And lastly, it was awarded a motto, to see that mammals sailing that ship kept good morale. Under the boat’s masthead, a snarling lion behind a shield and crossed swords, the _Invulnerable_ bore such a motto. It read _Emerge Nobis Pacem Habuit_ \-- in the common tongue, _We Emerge Unscathed_. These would be their watchwords, as integral to their beings as a heartbeat.

They would triumph. Smash evil apart with justice’s unyielding edge. And then they would return home.

Not only did they have three of Zoohaven’s finest ships to see this task completed, but also as shrewd and gifted a Sailing Master as ever plied the ocean’s near-eternal breadth. Eli was more than ready for the task, and he stood resolutely at the helm now, hanging on with a steely grip despite the deck’s drunken pitching, making certain the ship ploughed bow-first into the waves to keep the menace of capsizing at bay.

Judith was right beside him, keeping a firm eye on their direction against her compass and checking the development of the thunderhead that rumbled in the distance, preparing to intervene if she thought the danger grew too great. Truthfully, Eli was capable of coping by himself, but Judith refused to take comfort below while asking her crew to put their lives in peril.

She was joined on the quarterdeck by Joshua, a recently-promoted midshipmammal, filling a gap left by the appointment of several of her crew to lieutenants. Usually Riley, a diligent if unheroic sheep, filled the roll of her Orders Officer, ferrying her commands from one end of the ship to the other. However, the pitiable sod had been struck down by some enfevered sickness and was in the infirmary, alternating between bouts of incoherent jabbering and truly epic vomiting. Joshua had substituted, although she doubted the young Margay was terribly thrilled with his impromptu promotion at present.

“Captain, it’s coming down something fierce!” shouted Joshua, staring in undisguised fear into the opaque curtain of rain that consumed them. His voice was nearly drowned out by the hammer of wind-hurled water against the ship’s canvas sails. “Aren’t we in danger of sinking?”

“Eli!” Judith called. “Are we in danger?”

“We’re going after the Blackwolf!” Eli called back. “This is about the safest our lives’ll be for a time!”

“There!” shouted Judith. “We continue!”

“That doesn’t mean no!” whimpered Joshua, clinging desperately to the capstan.

Sailing close by, Judith could see the _Wavebreak_ and _Seastrom_ ploughing through the sea’s maddened churning, huge gouts of ocean spray blasting up from their keels and rushing over their decks. It was little better aboard the _Invulnerable,_ where every so often a tide of white water would swamp the deck, and the whole ship seemed to pitch at ludicrous angles in the storm-lashed swell. It had occurred to Judith that, were she not wearing a harness and lashed bulwark, she would probably have been swept overboard already.

But she refused to let it cause her fear, sap her nerve, inflict so much as a tremble. How could she hope to face the Blackwolf if a little drizzle was enough to make her turn tail?

The _Invulnerable_ was built to endure far worse than this. So was she.

A capricious bolt of lightning struck the water’s surface, no more than a few hundred yards away, shattering the very air with its thunderous crack, louder than the synchronised cannon volley of a whole armada.

“Oh, fuck!” Joshua shrieked.

“There’s no good sense in cursing at the storm, sailor!” came Nick’s voice, and Judith turned to face him. He had emerged from the quarterdeck stairs, rocking to keep his balance on the tilting timber. This was not the right time -- this was _definitely_ not the right company -- to let any hint of her affection for the fox show. So she stuffed those emotions in a chest and locked it firmly; a curl of the lip was all that escaped.

“Lieutenant!” Joshua shouted, raising one paw in salute before scrambling back to his pawhold on a capstan. He almost needn’t have bothered; lieutenant or not, Nick was almost completely unconcerned with naval formalities.

“If you cuss at the weather,” he continued, smirking at the terrified Margay, “you stir the forgotten gods of old -- they’ll rise up in anger, and piss a mighty hole right through our boat!”

“Leave the poor lad alone,” Judith chastised. “He’s doing well enough. And speaking of, what are you doing on deck?”

Nick screwed up his face. “Are you telling me you have no need for a sarcastic fleabag?”

“In this weather? The greatest use you could serve out here is to get yourself washed overboard.”

As if to underscore that remark, the ship dipped dramatically over the crest of a wave, and a surge of water rushed up the foredeck.

“Not a fate I’d enjoy,” muttered Nick. “But surely, if anyone should be worried about getting carried away by the ocean, it’s you…” He grinned as Judith gave the rope she was harnessed to a flick. “Well, I still think you’re underestimating how much you’d miss me,” he added.

The lid of that chest peeked open a crack, and Judith flashed him a frown. _Don’t you dare_ , she thought.

She might have been coming to adore this coarse-yet-caring brigand, but she was no lovesick kitten; this relationship was dangerous. It was a loaded pistol, and even if they were heroes in the public eye, there were plenty of mammals who would take that weapon, if they knew it was there, and fire it straight into their hearts.

What had Nick said? Burn this candle, but burn it in secret; cast not so much as a glimmer in the pitch-dark. It was the only way to keep them both safe. So, she closed the lid of that chest tightly, and made doubly certain that it was locked.

“I need an able mammal to make sure the ropes holding down our supplies are secure; it won’t do to have any crates burst in these savage conditions. Take three Deck Paws and see to it, Wilde. That’ll keep you out of the rain.”

Her command was all steel. Inflexible. Indisputable. It was the voice of commodore Judith Hopps.

Nick was a clever fox, though, and he saw right through the façade of her detachment. He snapped her a salute -- his accuracy at that gesture was steadily improving -- and he made way for the hold, giving his dripping, bushy tail a meaningful swish before he vanished from her sight.

She couldn’t help herself -- try though she might, and bringing every screed of control she could muster to bear, she couldn’t stop a slight smile from gracing her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are. Back in business. I'm so excited I could be sick. But then I'd have to pick chunks of vomit out of my keyboard before I could type some more, so I'll hold it in.
> 
> You may have noticed this story starts somewhat differently to others I've written; with an extended introduction of the villain. Well, I've become a lot more confidant at writing -- again, the real key there is scrupulously detailed planning -- and this tale promises to be a real beast. I won't speculate at just how long; suffice to say the word 'long haul' comes to mind. The upshot is I know exactly to what direction all the detail should point, and I don't get nervous about committing to those details. Hence we're going to spend some time jumping to different characters, places and times throughout this story. As a narrative, Of Salt and Steel just matured into its adolescence.
> 
> You may also have noticed that the chapter art from Wounded World is back. It's a bit courser, done with a graphite stick and some deliberate roughness. It's quicker to do -- there's also going to be a reason for it. I'm not just lazy, I swear!
> 
> By the way, I spotted a slump in views between Fox's Guile and Into The Black, and I could only put it down to people giving up after the emotional plummet at the end of part 1. If that's you, and you're reading this, then bravo. Thanks for giving it a second shot. I didn't drag us through the briar-patch of misery so I could sit back and laugh at your scars. I did it so when we made it to more beautiful terrain, you'd appreciate it that much more. All I'm saying is, give sadness a chance.
> 
> Alright; we've a heart-stopping story to get underway. I promise I won't disappoint.


	2. Damned Fools

Judith didn’t particularly like the chandelier that hung in the captain’s gallery, draped with strings of polished crystal that sparkled like beads of morning dew in a spider-web. She would have preferred it be replaced with something less flamboyant, as suited her manner. But there had been no time for such tailoring to taste, and at very least it did an exemplary job of illuminating the room.

In said room, seated variously around Judith’s wide maple dining table, was every mammal of station aboard the fleet. Felix and Beck were there, having come across to the _Invulnerable_ that morning. Harley, Judith’s leopard first lieutenant, sat close to his captain, as did Lars, the jackal with a scarred left eye, who had earned his seat at the proceedings by passing his examinations and securing a promotion to lieutenant himself. The Master Gunner, MacHorn, was difficult to miss, scowling and one-eared -- he stood at the table, as him taking a seat would likely entail him breaking it with his substantial girth. Also scattered around the room were the midshipmammals, there to learn the practice of military strategy. Joshua was amongst them; he had calmed considerably since they had passed the storm two days ago. And of course, sitting off to the side, working a pinch of tobacco into his worn pipe, his ear cocked for any interesting details, was Nick.

At present the room was quiet, save for muttered conversation and the gentle squeak of the hull holding a much-calmed ocean at bay. Most of the mammals were sporting wool-lined coats, for they had sailed far into Berseisian waters chasing their target, and the air had turned savagely cold. Frost gathering on the decks of a night was a common report. Judith had already increased the daily rum ration for the comfort of the crew, and all gathered in the room that evening drank wine; a fine, almost celebratory red that Judith had uncorked.

When the moment was right, she rapped her knuckles on the hardwood tabletop. The conversation halted, and all eyes turned on her.

“Captains, lieutenants, midshipmammals. Let me put aside any speculation as to what we’re doing in this room; tonight, we discuss how we are to engage the _Predator_ , and bring the Blackwolf’s reign of bloodshed to an end.”

A minor commotion ensured: the midshipmammals exchanged nervous glances; Harley wore a broad grin, and excitedly drummed on the table with the palm of his paw; Felix and Beck simply regarded Judith with quiet intensity. Off to the side, Nick cursed as he dropped his tobacco on the floor.

When the noise softened, Judith continued.

“Briefly to other matters; in keeping good time, we’ve been forced to sail some hazardous conditions, although the _Invulnerable_ suffered little damage worthy of account. I want reports as to how the _Seastorm_ and _Wavebreak_ weathered.”

“The _Seastorm_ survived with nothing worse than some buckled timbers,” said Beck, “and a tear on the flying jib sail that has already been patched.”

“So it is for the _Wavebreak_ , as well…” Felix began. His jaw tightened. “…However, some knots in the cargo hold did give, and one sailor was crushed by a sliding crate. He’ll survive; he’s in the infirmary as we speak.” Admitting to even a small failing under his command seemed to cause him real distress.

“A common enough occurrence for sailing in rough conditions,” Judith said. “Frankly, I’d count it as a miracle that we took as little damage as we did.”

Nobody saw Nick smirk idiotically in the corner. Felix’s discomfort never ceased to entertain him.

“Commodore, If I may…” Harley interjected, continuing only when Judith nodded. “The crew has done little over the past week but speculate about how we’re to hunt down a ship that leaves no trace behind. I count no worth in fables, but many really do think of Silas as a disembodied spectre -- as if catching him is like trying to catch pixie dust…” This he said with a note of disappointment, bordering on disgust, that the majority of the crew did not share his enthusiasm for their chances at success in chasing down the legendary foe.

Judith glanced at Felix, who stood up to command the attention of the whole room.

“A trap lies in wait for this ‘spectre’; fabrications of a ship loaded with enticements, sailing for Bersei, just as we are. When he swoops in to steal this prize, he will find us instead, and we will reveal him to be nothing more than mammalian.”

This elicited an eager whoop from Harley, which brought a smile to the faces of all -- save one, who emboldened by nerve and wine, advanced his concern.

“But they say that the _Predator_ is unsinkable!” protested Joshua, glancing around the room. “Some even say it’s not a ship at all, but a deep-sea leviathan that can swallow a corvette whole; a dragon that _breathes fire…_ ”

He clamped when he noticed the looks of unbridled scorn he was receiving. Lars leaned over the table, frowning impatiently, as one might at a misbehaving kitten.

“Oh, _they_ say that, do they? And who’s they? Hmm? Some unlettered pack of maggoty sailors, drinking themselves cross-eyed on cheap spirits in a rundown tavern somewhere? I certainly wished I’d paid closer attention to their wisdom, -- then I could be just as runny-headed as the next idiot–”

“Hush,” said Judith, gently but sternly, and silence returned to the table. “We all know why the myths about Silas are so persistent; for some 15 years, he’s stolen and slaughtered his way across the Latara, almost without consequence. Few mammals have ever seen him, let alone his drawn blood. I understand why folk think him a demon risen from the Underworld’s black pits…” She leaned forward, levelling a rapier-sharp gaze at the room, pining all to their chairs with her intensity. “Let me tell you how we’re going to dispel those myths.

“By all accounts, spurious or otherwise, the _Predator_ is a swift ship. But the _Invulnerable, Wavebreak_ and _Seastorm_ are three of the Zoohaven Navy’s finest vessels. We will be faster; that is, providing we have the wind at our backs, and Eli assures me the headwinds off the storm we’ve passed will favour us.

“Then, the issue becomes stopping the Blackwolf from out-manoeuvring us. Again, we have the advantage; three ships to his one. We sail upon him in a broad formation, and three abreast. While he’s at a distance, we’ll be able to see if he tries to turn aside and counter any such move. And if he’s brave enough to mount a broadside offensive, he will have to do so sailing between two fully-crewed ships. He won’t stand a chance.

“When our formation advances close enough, the _Invulnerable_ will fire upon the _Predator’s_ rudder with its fore-guns -- we have 6 cannons, more than any ship I’ve ever heard of. I know the accuracy of our gun crews; they can knock a mammal’s hat off on a tilting ship with those culverins.” She nodded towards MacHorn, who barely twitched -- it seemed he was as impervious to compliments as he was to musket fire.

“Once its rudder is shattered, the frigates can advance on both sides, grapple his rigging, and commence a boarding action, while _Invulnerable_ mounts them via corvus at the stren. In the fray, our superior numbers will force the enemy into surrender, and we’ll take the Blackwolf alive.”

A hearty cry went up at that, particularly from the midshipmammals, their fear alchemised into brazen courage. Even Felix couldn’t hide a twitch of a smirk.

“Good show!” Harley cheered. “With any luck, we’ll catch this mouldy sea-dog with his breeches around his ankles, and be home faster than a cheetah can blink.”

“With any luck, eh?” came Nick’s sharp tongue from the corner. Almost as one, the table turned to face him, where he had finally gotten a match to his pipe and blew a serpentine coil of smoke into the air. “The Blackwolf hasn’t spent all these years robbing and killing without being caught because he’s ‘lucky’. You know why he sails the length and breadth of the Latara? Because he knows if you settle in one place for too long, some government will take an interest and send an armed fleet after you. It’s cunning, not luck, that’s kept him out of a gibbet. And trust me, us foxes know cunning. Luck’s just an illusion that will get you killed; only a fool would bank on it.”

Some of the mammals, those unaccustomed to Nick’s undisciplined manner, watched him with surprise. Even Harley, who harboured an admiration for the fox, wrinkled his muzzle at Nick’s disrespectful tone; he knew Judith was protective of him, but knew nothing of the real depth of their affections, and surely thought such insolence warranted a reprimand. Beck and Felix, by contrast, appraised Nick evenly, as did Judith; she of all needed no reminder as to why Nick had a seat at this table.

“Forgive me, Wilde,” Beck said. “I understand you know piracy inside-and-out. But so do those of us who’ve dedicated their lives to stamping out that breed of lawlessness. What is it that you know of the Blackwolf specifically? Was there a time when you ran in the same circles?”

Nick snorted. “There’s no such thing as ‘those who ran in the same circles’ when it comes to the Blackwolf’s crew. You’re either on his ship, or you’re dead. That’s the other way he maintains his secrecy; by butchering anyone who might breathe a word about where he keeps anchor.”

“If you’ve no direct association with Silas, can your knowledge really be better than that of those claim him to be a ghost?” Beck asked.

Nick grinned; Saints, he was beginning to savour these moments.

“Far better, I should imagine. I’ve met someone the cross-eyed drunks have not; the only mammal to ever escape the Blackwolf’s crew alive.”

A stunned murmur swept across the table. Felix aimed a hard, narrow-eyed stare right at the fox.

“Liar,” he said.

“Not today.”

“We’re supposed to believe that?” Felix asked, his usually formal tone dripping with sarcasm. “That you just so happened to stumble upon the one source of information that puts you above the reports and stories we have?”

“It’s the truth.”

“And the reason you’ve never mentioned it before this moment?”

“No one bothered to ask.”

Felix sat back and folded his arms. He may have no longer been actively wishing for Nick’s demise, but he was nowhere near the realm of complete trust. Nick found that somewhat amusing.

But it wasn’t Felix’s approval he sought; he turned his eyes to Judith, who started at him differently to the panther. An impartial judge, weighing the scales.

Hadn’t he once spoken true of a river that divided an island?

“Go on,” she said.

“If you were hoping for a magic spell, I’m afraid I have none. This mammal told me of no secret weaknesses, nor of his hide-away, nor of any pattern to his movements. I suppose he was afraid that if he volunteered any information, the Blackwolf would find some way to track him down and end his record of being the only escapee, the only exception to the rule.

“It was years ago. I was drinking in a winesink at Law’s End -- you lot who know piracy inside-and-out know of Law’s End, right?”

He smirked at the chorus of blank stares.

“It’s a pirates’ cove in the far south, the Gulf of Melior. At any rate, this weathered-looking grey wolf came up to me. Slight for a wolf. All wiry sinew. He was staring at me I the most curious fashion imaginable. Said he swore he knew my face.”

“Did you know him?” Beck asked.

Nick shrugged. “Berseisian wolves all look the same to me. When I told him my name was Nick Wilde, the Redcoat, he sat straight down with me. I just assumed he’d heard of my name somewhere. It was hard to tell what he wanted, so I bought him a drink. By the fourth, he was telling me his name was Korva, that he’d once been a pirate, and that he’d been aboard the _Predator._ ”

“And how do you know he was speaking the truth?” demanded Felix.

“If he was lying, then he was the best damned liar I’ve ever encountered. Recalled the most minute details of his stories, without contradiction. And the story he told was this; the Blackwolf can’t be stopped. Can’t be killed. He’s too tough, too ruthless, too utterly disinterested in mammalian suffering. The wold told stories of how Silas choked kittens in front of their mothers, pressing their little faces into the wet sand while they struggled. That he’d take an eye for insubordination, as casually as you or I would puck a grape from a bunch. He may not be risen from the Underworld, but he’s as close to a demon as can exist in this world.”

“We already knew Silas was a monster,” Judith said. “What is it you really want to say, Nick?”

He suddenly became serious, all trace of levity bled from his countenance.

“This mission the lords of Zoohaven have dispatched you on is a farce. Stupidity of the most contemptable sort. If we try and take Silas alive, he will find a way to take all your advantages and blunt them. Laugh as we try to escape. Chase us as far as we can limp away. And then he’ll rip our throats out. Everyone in this room. Everyone on this crew. All dead.”

Judith knew where he was going. “Get to the point.”

“The only way to defeat the Blackwolf -- the _only_ way -- is the break him. Utterly. You need to blast his ship to pieces. You need to sift through the wreckage for his body. And if he still has breath in him then, slit his throat. Fuck his day in court.”

The room exploded. The midshipmammals split between shocked disbelief and anxious jabbering. Joshua looked on the cusp of fainting. Felix stood up in anger -- he seemed to be revising his position on wishing for Nick’s demise. Judith’s face darkened.

“You’re a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, Nick,” she said, “and a criminal on pardon. Words like those are treason.”

“So be it. Hang me. And when you find the Blackwolf, kill him as well.”

Judith looked about the room. Half of it looked ready to seize Nick by his throat and strangle him. The other half had devolved into fretful gossiping. Only Beck sat calmly, watching Nick silently, that black creature that lurked behind his eyes extending its claws.

There was only one thing to do.

“You’re all dismissed,” hissed Judith icily. “All of you, save Nick. Someone needs to be put right about his commitments to the cause that’s letting him keep his life.”

One by one, the divided crowd left the room, throwing fleeting looks at the dismal fox who snarled back at them, fangs protruding. Felix left to return to the _Wavebreak_ , looking utterly disgusted with Nick. Beck was the last to leave, throwing one final glance at Nick before he stepped through the door, closing it behind him.

Judith rounded on Nick, spearing him on the tip of her anger.

“How dare you! Not just my command, but the entire mandate upon which it’s founded?! You tarnish both?! You fool, Nick!” She stormed to the gallery door as she vented, locking it shut.

“You asked for my counsel, once upon a time!” Nick growled. “You asked for my fair and honest counsel! And that’s what you’ll get, for as long as I have breath to give it…”

Judith marched across the room, seized Nick by the lapels, dragged his face down to hers, and kissed him.

Nick blinked in surprise, before he put his arms around her and lifted her up to him. They kissed fiercely, in a way that shamed the passion of those old tales where true knights kissed blushing damsels, where princesses swooned into the arms of princes. They kissed so hard it hurt.

When they finally pulled apart -- seconds or aeons passing, who could tell? -- she stared into his eyes and whispered, “You fool, Nick.”

“You’re the fool, Judith,” he whispered back, running one paw over her ears. “A damned fool, chasing honour and glory like so many damned fools gone before you.”

“I knew the price when I set my course,” she said, smiling up at him. “So did you, Nick. And you stayed. You’ll see it through to the end.”

“I will,” he said. “Whatever the cost, however deep I have to dig to find the coin, I’ll be by your side. I’ll be there to protect you…”

He cupped her cheek in his paw, his voice no longer cavalier, or infuriated, but desperate. Pleading.

“...Which is why I’m asking -- I’m begging, Judith -- listen to me. Kill this wolf. Don’t try to take him breathing. Kill him and be done with it. What does it matter, really?”

Judith wasn’t immune, try though she might to pretend. This was love speaking. Protective, passionate love, as genuine as Ja’karian gold. They wanted to keep each other safe, and it was simply an impossibility considering the task they were set to. The stakes, however high, were irrelevant; the die was already cast.

Which left Judith with a gnawing fear at the heart of her, because Nick was right; taking the Blackwolf alive was the most dangerous thing they could do. It was wagging their tails at death's leering face. But it was the only option she could take.

“It matters, Nick. Perhaps you can’t see why, but it does. I’ve said words and made pledges and sworn vows and I can’t go back on them. I won’t become the coward and hypocrite I’ve always hated.

“You’re a damned fool,” Nick repeated, tears starting to bead in his eyes.

“I’m your damned fool.”

Their lips came together again, fed by the fire of their fears and doubts and desperate wants. If they’d had the merest deficit of self-control at that moment, they both knew they would have rent their garments there and then, and taken one another on that maple table, as if it were the last time they’d ever see one another again.

But it was too dangerous. Fool-hardy. Even this kiss was spiced with peril, if anyone caught so much as a hint of its existence.

So, they held each other for as long as they dared, and prayed that good luck wasn’t as illusory as Nick said.

 

(My thanks to Stormspike for this gorgeous full-colour rendition. His Deviant Art page is under the same name)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh gosh. It's was only while planning the more minor details of this and other chapters that I realised just how many characters I've created, that are all cogs in the machine. And I don't want any of those cogs to be spinning freely. I know Judith and Nick are the main attraction, but it's going to be a challenge to make sure none of the supporting cast get neglected. A fun challenge; an exciting one. But a challenge all the same...Is it too late to go back and just write One-Shots? (I wouldn't dream of it.)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this slightly tender chapter. It was an absolute pleasure to write.


	3. Something Amiss

At sea, the view from the crow’s nest revealed a curiosity -- a world seemingly obsessed with circularity.

The breath-halting curvature of the horizon was on full display, for one thing. Its bowed form stood as pronounced evidence that the planet was vast and spherical, putting paid to the antiquated belief that the earth was flat, like some giant dinner plate. Also, any pair of eyes at the top of the mast had their field of vision rendered as a flawless radius, unobscured by a single hill, tree or tower, by any terrestrial clutter. There was only 360 degrees of ‘as far as the eye could see’. And all this under the orb of the sun, tracing its unwavering arc across the heavens.

Well, excepting this day where the sun hid shyly behind a screen of clouds, its light sickly and diminished. Both sky and sea were the same metallic blue-grey, and each lungful of air ached with the cold.

Nick had never been much troubled by the chill, however, and he sat in his usual attire on the yard, the beam from which the sails hung, at the top of the main mast, watching the sailors on deck below go about their duties in thick, wool-lined coats, their every breath a plume of fog. Amongst them he spotted the young sheep, Riley, who seemed to be largely recovered from his bout of illness; yesterday, Nick had seen him slumped over the edge of the ship, losing the contents of his stomach to the ocean. He’d tried to assure Nick, with splashes of bile staining the front of his clothes, he was completely recovered, so either the sheep was a woeful liar, or had somewhat overindulged on his extra rum rations.

Nick had carried a steaming mug of tea all the way to the topmast, and just how he’d managed that feat was anyone’s guess. It was also a mystery as to what exactly compelled him to scale the mast’s heights in these dangerous conditions, when the light was poor and all was covered in a crust of slick ice.

Mind you, if Nick’s behaviour was dangerous, it was nothing compared to that of Samuel’s, the Master Carpenter, who had come up to make repairs on the mast. He sat astride the yard without rope or harness, merely clinging to the jackstays for safety. He was naked from the waist up, dressed as one might for tropical weather, for sandy beaches and turquoise shoal-water.

Nick wasn’t bothered by the cold; Samuel didn’t know it existed.

The badger had clambered up the dizzying height of the main mast to brace the yardarm, for the stress of the brutal weather they had sailed through had begun to warp it, striking it through with hairline cracks. Usually, repairs of this nature were a task for the Master Carpenter’s crew, but Samuel had spat and said, “Those slack-arses couldn’t hammer a bloody nail straight if you paid ‘em to. Which we do, don’t we? We’d better stop doing that, right quick.” Samuel was no master of diplomacy.

Having secured one side of the brace to the beam, he now laboured at fastening the other side, knocking nails in with his marlinspike, an iron tool used for everything from scraping paint to stirring coffee, while listening to Nick blither.

“But you bloody well lost the duel,” Samuel muttered. “So how in hell is it a ‘lucky’ hole?”

“Because the rabbit could have shot me right between the eyes,” Nick replied, tapping the aforementioned space with his finger, “and yet here I am, alive and breathing. You wouldn’t call that luck?”

“Unless she meant to kill you, and she’s just got an aim like me after half a quart o’ hard whiskey, then no, I wouldn’t. The ‘spared me out’a pity hole’, more like.”

A grin split Nick’s face. It was a challenge to dislike the hoarse-voiced badger -- unless, of course, you found the trait of giving one’s crass opinion in the most vulgar language possible at every available opportunity disagreeable, in which case it was unbearable to be anywhere near him at all.

“If mammals go around deciding to spare your life all the time, one would have to say you have good luck, right?” Nick argued.

“Aye, though I’d suggest you try getting better at winning fights, as well. In any case, you didn’t have the hole in your coat afore she spared your life, huh? So, it ain’t the bloody hole that’s lucky, anyhow.”

Nick chuckled. “You have me there.”

“Damned right I do,” Samuel said, shaking his head. “Foxes are supposed to be clever, are they? This one ain’t.”

Nick let him return to the task of hammering, downing the last of his tea and scanning the far horizon. He had always enjoyed the unparalleled view from the topmast: as a kit, working the lines aboard a private sloop; as a young pirate, just acquiring his thirst for adventure; as the captain of his own ship. The last had enthused him in particular, for in those moments he had been an entitled lord, surveying his rich and boundless estate. If you wished to go somewhere, you had but to turn with the wind to make it so.

And then there was this. Sailing under the direct command of a Zoohaven commodore. Salutes. Medals for valour.

Somehow, deep down, he found it all invigorating.

And for that reason, the view was more important than ever. Torn between the satisfaction of belonging and the call of the empty blue, he needed the reminder that he was not ‘Lieutenant’ Wilde.

At heart, he was the Redcoat, and sailing under orders wasn’t living.

He had to escape. And if he was going to do that…

Samuel smacked the last nail in place and blew an exhausted breath; it steamed dragonlike from his mouth in the raw wind.

“Saints, cold wood is a hard bitch to hammer,” he muttered.

Nick nodded. “As hard as hiding behind your own shadow?”

“As hard as rutting a lioness without getting your balls clawed.”

“Done that,” said Nick. “Not as hard as you’d think.”

Samuel burst into belly-shaking laughter, and Nick continued to marvel at how the badger avoided slipping off the yard and ending up as a smear on the weather deck.

“You did, did you?” he said, slotting his marlinspike back into his belt. “That must’ve been some night. And you do seem the type to try what’s on offer outside your own kind. Not everyone’s keen on that sort of thing.”

“What about you?” Nick asked. “Did you ever have a lass that wasn’t a badger?”

“Hoh. When I was younger, all I cared was that it was wet and had a pulse. These days, I’ll settle for one out of two.”

Nick laughed, but he was already away inside his own head, a pilgrim amidst his own memories, reliving the night that had, once upon a time, been the most pleasurable moment of his life. His night with the goddess.

Yet, through the lens of recollection, it seemed colourless and uninteresting now. Bled of all its once vibrant hue. Nothing but a lewd story, a tavern tale, barely worthy of note.

The memory had been usurped, toppled off its throne by another. For moments that had brought on a sheer adrenal rush of life, moments that that filled him with an unquenchable desire to meet the next day, there was only one.

Judith. Her fur pressed against his. The taste of her on his tongue.

He couldn’t leave without her. She had bloomed into his life and taken up every inch of available space. She was a rose’s inherent contradictions -- beautiful and dangerous; delicately-scented petals, wickedly-sharp thorns.

He couldn’t leave without her.

Somehow, he was going to have to convince her to come with him.

Suddenly, he noticed a blotch on the horizon -- something spoiling the perfection of the curve. Frowning, he snatched his spyglass from his belt and pressed it to his eye. Samuel watched him, his head cocked to the side.

“You see something?”

Nick’s mouth tightened, his lips drawn as straight as the remote horizon.

It was distant but clear; a trio of black sails, bulging with the cold northern air.

“We’ve found our quarry,” Nick hissed.

 

 

The sharp ring of a brass bell tolling, summoning all to their combat stations; the thunder of hoof and paw on the deck as mammals took arms and rushed to the gunwales; the gruff cry of commands given; the throaty _clunk_ of cannons being loaded.

Noise and movement. Excitement and fear. The commotion of a warship preparing for battle.

Standing on the quarterdeck, Judith’s eye was locked on the _Predator_ through her telescope. When they had first caught sight of the enemy ship, it had been sailing across their bow; it had since turned with the wind and was sailing on the same bearing as the _Invulnerable_ , during which time Judith’s squadron had closed the gap between them. She was close enough now to spot some of the details aboard the infamous ship, such as the gaping wolf’s skull, frozen in a silent snarl, emblazoned upon the black pennant that flew from its main mast. She could see its gunports; these, she saw, were markedly wider than her own, and she made a note that the _Predator_ favoured cannons of a heavier gauge than most.

She began to mentally prepare herself, for almost certainly within the hour they would be crossing blades with a pack of canid marauders. She watched the sailors around her -- loading muskets, packing their barrels with sabots to improve their shots -- and weighed their lives carefully. There would be casualties; it was accepted that no battle had ever been won without blood spilled, but she had to remind herself that no single life could stand above the others.

Like an apparition summoned upon the utterance of its name, Nick appeared at the stairwell, joining Harley and Lars -- MacHorn was present as well, his gigantic weapon slung over his broad shoulder. Nick was dressed for battle, his tricron pulled tight over his head, pistol grips protruding from his waist sash and new blade swinging from his side. Battered coat aside, he cut a rakish figure.

 Inside her thoughts, Judith was penitent. That kiss had been stupid. A mistake. A dent in her shield of impartiality. She ought to have been angrier at Nick’s brazen disobedience in suggesting that she abandon her orders, and she hadn’t because she’d been too busy burying her paws in his neck fur.

Bogo’s words echoed in her head. Discipline would lead her to success. Discipline would ensure no deaths suffered were in vain. So be it -- discipline would be her guide.

 _Back in the chest you go, Nick_ , she thought. _Until we’ve seen this through._

“We’re definitely gaining on them,” Nick said, coming to a halt and offering the least impressive example of a salute ever seen. “By ten yards a minute. The fore-guns will be in range within the half-hour.”

Judith nodded, deliberately reserved.

She planned to delay firing until the very last moment possible to make certain that every one of their shots landed true, to leave no window for the Blackwolf’s trickery.

Her strategizing had been rigorous before; this time, however, she had been faultlessly scrupulous in her planning. She had pored over reports of the _Predator’s_ raids for hours, harvesting up every detail, and once those that had been patently mythological -- it dives and resurfaces at will; it’s a fire-breathing dragon; its crew are undead monsters, resurrected by cursed gold -- were discarded, the point of constant recurrence had been the _Predator’s_ speed and manoeuvrability. That morning, as soon as their target had appeared on the horizon, she had ordered maps of this patch of Bersesian sea brought up to the deck. The only notable feature was a large patch of maze-like reefs on the port side, a tangled labyrinth in which the _Predator_ might attempt to seek a tactical advantage, but they would strike before the enemy ship could hope to reach it.

To avoid a repeat of the engagement against Bronhelm, she had taken every eventuality into consideration, and still told herself to be vigilant, to react if anything seemed slightly amiss. Still, she was nervous.

“They seem be committed to this bearing,” Harley said, watching the _Predator_ through his own spyglass, an expensive example made of polished brass, probably a gift to commemorate his promotion. “How might Silas react when we open fire?”

“Well, Lieutenant?” Judith said, throwing Nick a glance. “If it was you at the _Predator’s_ helm, what would you do?”

Nick clucked his tongue. “I wouldn’t be looking for a fight, that’s for sure. Three against one is poor odds, and pirates are more gambler than soldier. I would be making every effort to get to those shoals and give you the slip.”

“Is there any chance he could pull that off?” Harley asked.

“He could roll out oars. He could run bonnets off the bottom of his sails to catch more wind. But it’s far too late; we’re going to outpace him before any of that.”

If Harley still felt any ill-will towards Nick following the fiasco of the meeting, it was hard to see in his toothy grin. Judith’s mouth, however, didn’t budge. She refused to let her guard so much as slip. Nick’s words from that night kept circling in her mind; Silas isn’t lucky, he’s cunning. Cunning and brutal.

She swallowed. Something was going to happen.

“Riley,” she said, and her Order’s Officer snapped to attention. “Send this down to the crew -- any mammal not ready and presenting arms inside the minute will have their rum rations suspended on the return voyage.”

“Ma’am,” Riley said smartly, disappearing with disciplined efficiency.

“We can’t afford complacency,” Judith muttered. “The barest hint of it, and Silas will take it and punish us for it. There’ll be no blood spilled in futility today.”

“We can be sure of that, so long as I get the chance to draw my blade against them,” Nick boasted, drawing _Renascitur_ partway from its scabbard, letting its polished blade catch the sun. “It’s bad luck to carry an unblooded blade for too long.”

“I thought luck was an illusion,” chimed Lars, staring at the blustering fox with a cocked eyebrow.

“Still, let’s take no chances, hey?” Nick returned, grinning smartly.

Judith went back to her telescope, staring unblinkingly at her foe.

There was no sign that the _Predator_ was changing course.

 

 

Twenty minutes later, it happened.

Judith spied a flash from the stern of the _Predator_ that looked like cannon fire from the aft guns _,_ and she tensed, ready to take cover.

But it was no barrage of iron that came their way. The puff of white smoke began to grow; first taking on remarkable proportions, and then absurd.

“Hey! Woah!” Harley barked, welded to his spyglass. “What on earth _is_ that?!”

Judith stared open mouthed at the billowing cloud. Already, it was nearly as tall and as wide as the enemy ship; soon, the _Predator_ would vanish behind it entirely.

Nick snapped open his own telescope and glassed the unfolding events. “A smokescreen,” he muttered. “Powdered zinc and sugar, most like. He’s trying to hide from you.”

Judith’s heart began to rumble in her breast. This was the thing amiss. The moment she’d known would come.

“What’s he hoping to achieve?” asked Harley. “Is he trying to create cover to blunt our fore-guns accuracy? That’s crafty…”

“No,” Judith muttered, collapsing her telescope. “No, it’s better than that.”

She rushed to the _Invulnerable’s_ quarterdeck table, where the marine map had been pinned down. Harley and Lars followed her quickly, Nick and Riley close behind them.

“Silas needs to turn the advantage of numbers around, and he can’t do that in a level engagement between ships,” Judith said, motioning to a number of coloured tokens that represented the ships at their present locations. “He can, however, if he can steer into that reef. In there, it would be a challenge to angle an effective cannonade, or to pull alongside him to board. And if we’re still in this formation-” she tapped the tokens denoting their three ships, spaced widely apart “-when we try to follow him into the shoal mouth, we’ll be in trouble; the _Seastorm_ will interfere with the _Invulnerable’s_ turn, and the _Wavebreak_ will have sailed too far. We’ll lose precious time reordering, time in which Silas can make conditions more favourable to himself.”

“And we can’t see any of this through that smoke,” observed Lars, “or put an accurate shot up his backside.”

Was it fear Judith felt? Excitement? Whatever it was, it strangled her throat and sent chills from her ear to her foot. She had to make a choice.

In her mind’s eye, she could see it; the _Predator_ , behind the smoke’s deceptive veil. She could imagine the Blackwolf’s superior sneer, anticipating the moment when it was revealed that she’d fallen for his ploy.

“Get orders to the _Seastorm_ and _Wavebreak_ ; tighten our formation! Prepare to pull to port on my order!”

Riley all but vanished in a puff of smoke, rushing amidships to pass the command on. A pair of flagmammals took up banners -- the preferred means of communication between ships at sea -- and began to wave them. Corresponding motions aboard the two frigates proved the orders had been received, and the _Wavebreak_ and _Seastorm_ began to edge toward the _Invulnerable._ The fifty-yard-gap became twenty.

Judith took one last look at the map, at the two or three points of deep water within the reef where they ought to be able to properly aim and land a cannonade on the enemy. She committed them to memory, ready to make good use of the knowledge when the time was right

“I don’t like this,” Nick growled, eyes pinned to the smoke cloud, watching as it bloated and swirled like a gathering storm. “Something’s wrong. I can feel it in my gut…”

Judith was inclined to agree, but what was she to do? By all appearances, the _Predator_ was attempting to flee, and if it somehow slunk out of their view, then all her careful preparations would come to naught. There might never be a second chance. She had to move to intercept.

She opened her mouth to say so…and got no further.

It just hung there, hanging slack, as she watched a shifting black shadow begin to swell in the heart of the cloud. Like a demonic embryo gestating, it grew larger and larger, until it suddenly took on the unmistakable shape of sail and prow.

The _Predator_ came bursting out of the haze, trailing long ribbons of smoke where it rolled off their sails.

The enemy was heading straight for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things might be a bit sporadic for a while as I try a new process for drafting that hopefully improves the quality and speed at which I write. There's my writing tip for the day -- identify the things that slow you down and limit their influence. For example, I've found that getting up in the middle of the night to write because you've had a genius idea turns you into a dimwit sloth the next day, making you bad at any further writing. And basically anything else you had hoped to accomplish that day, too. Except dribbling.
> 
> You might have noticed the chapter art has shifted slightly in style. That's mostly because I didn't think a bunch of graphite streaks over the Predator's organised detail would improve things. That said, please feel free to point out the bungled details to me, like the lack of any topmasts, or that it only has 8 cannons, or that the ship is apparently crewed by tiny, microscopic wolves who can't be detected -- I find these things hilarious.


	4. Firestorm

Like a hell-born diablo wreathed in sulphurous smoke, the _Predator_ surged out of the haze, carving a malicious path through the waves towards the trio of Zoohaven ships.

Every mammal aboard the _Invulnerable_ pointed and shouted, their alarmed cries laced with hysteria as all the dark and unearthly myths about their foe came rushing to the forefront of their minds. Judith too stood and stared, chasing away the thought that it was a wraith or demon that now bore down upon them. Kedging -- dropping anchor as the ship came about in order to tighten the circumference of a turn -- was an old trick. She had done it herself before. But how the _Predator_ had managed a complete about within the limited confines of the smokescreen it had raised seemed to defy explanation.

 _No ship can turn that sharply_ , she thought, furious with herself for how immediately she entertained a supernatural cause for the feat. _How on earth did…_

 _Cunning. Cunning and brutal_.

“Fore-guns!” Judith roared. “Fire across his bow! And by the Saints, get the _Wavebreak_ and the _Seastorm_ to pull away from us! Reopen our formation!”

But time was now their enemy, as well; even as the flagmammals began to feverishly signal her orders, the _Predator_ turned sharply, aiming to pass the _Wavebreak_ on its starboard side. The _Invulnerable’s_ bow cannons began to pepper the enemy with shot, smashing holes in their hull and gunwales. The raking fire did nothing to slow the _Predator’s_ relentless advance, however.

 “That’s shrewd,” Nick muttered, peering at the ship’s course through narrowed eyes. “He wants to slink right past without firing a shot. To vanish like a puddle in summer heat.”

Harley threw Nick a worried glance. “Has the Blackwolf really got a chance at escaping?”

“We still have the fastest ships,” Judith reminded them. “He might gain some distance while we orchestrate a turn, but we’ll soon match his pace and then overtake him again. No, there’s definitely more to this…”

She was interrupted as the _Predator’s_ fore-guns began to bark in response, sending balls crashing across her deck. Likewise, a musket ball whipped over her head with a shrill buzz, punching through the canvas of the mizzensail; they’d come within range of some of the _Predator’s_ more excitable shots.

Lars ducked as a ball embedded in the mast with a sharp _thwack,_ mere inches from his head.

“So much for without firing a shot!” he growled.

“Harley! Take Lars and MacHorn and organise return fire from the main deck!” Judith ordered.

The leopard and jackal saluted and rushed amidships, snatching muskets from the quarterdeck’s arms rack as they departed. MacHorn made to follow them, but first paused to take a shot from the quarterdeck’s heights. The blast from his rifle thundered even above the reports of the duelling cannons; on the deck of the _Predator,_ his shot broke through both the bulwark and one wolf standing behind it, blowing gaping craters in the pair of them.

“The Blackwolf has the _Wavebreak_ outmanoeuvred,” said Nick, watching the enemy ship. “At best, Felix will get one chance at a broadside against the _Predator_ before it sails past.”

“Felix is a smart cat,” said Judith. “He’ll load his starboard cannons with bar-shot and strip as much of the sail off the _Predator_ as he can. He doesn’t have to kill the beast. He just has to put a spear in his haunch. Make him limp. Then we can catch and board him before…”

Something on the _Predator’s_ deck snatched her attention; something large and cumbersome, sitting prideful on the ship’s forecastle, glinting in the weak winter sun. Puzzlement and alarm in equal measure welled up inside her as she brought up her spyglass for a better look.

It was almost certainly some kind of weapon; three long barrels, polished silver-bright, all the size of heavy-gauge cannons. They protruded in a trefoil formation from some elaborate and sturdy housing, all of which was seated upon an enormous rotating cog. The end of each barrel, Judith noticed, was fashioned to look like a snarling hound, eyes open and ablaze with terrible hatred. A crew of wolves toiled at its operation, also working a blazing forge built right there on the ship’s deck. It all had the look of something cast in the black heat of a devil’s foundry, a nightmare given shape and substance.

Judith swallowed, her mouth gone dry. “That…that _thing_ , on the _Predator’s_ deck. Have you ever seen anything of its kind before?” she asked Nick, who snapped his telescope open and glassed the enemy ship.

“I have not…” he replied, watching tensely as the weapon began to turn the gaze of its six searing eyes directly at the _Wavebreak._

 

“Load those guns with bar-shot!” Felix barked at the weather deck gun crew as he rushed down the quarterdeck stairs, taking them two at a time. “And get the order below decks to hold fire until we’re on the up roll! We’ll tear his masts to matchwood!”

He could not proudly call himself a captain and be found cowering for cover at the ship’s stern; whatever horrors the enemy could conjure, he would be in the very midst of them. He had proved his worth as a lieutenant; he had the scars as badges of his merit. Now it was time to earn fresh scars, new badges. To prove himself again.

He landed on the main deck amidst a storm of shot and cannon fire, surrounded by chaos and noise, by airborne lead and splinters of wood. An unfortunate tiger to his left took a musket ball in his throat, his eyes rolling backwards into his head as he choked his last breath through a mouthful of blood. There was no time, however, for concern over the suffering of the individual. Felix stalked forward, his musket loaded, ready to avenge each fallen Blue Jacket twice over upon the enemy.

He took cover by the gunwale amidships, propping his musket on the rail for support. Down his sights he spied one mangy cur, brandishing pistols and howling like some blood-thirsty barbarian. He held his breath and pulled the trigger. His skills were as sharp as ever; his target’s head snapped back, split open by the perfect shot. But as the wolf slumped aside, Felix saw something behind him.

Three cannon barrels. All wrought to look like hellfire minions. All pointed directly their way.

He watched as a wolf in a heavy apron seized something from a burning forge with a pair of iron tongs -- a ball of iron, he saw, glowing cherry red with the heat -- and rolled it down one of the barrels in a shower of forge-born sparks. The terrible purpose of this weapon dawned on Felix, and he hurried to reload his musket.

Another wolf lifted a second heated ball from the flames, and a third followed shortly after. Both went rolling down the remaining empty bores just as Felix finished tipping the powder down the barrel of his musket. He was moving far too slowly.

“Saints…lend me your weapon, mammal!” he cried, snatching a readied musket from the paws of another sailor beside him. He watched one aproned wolf down his sights; watched him take a match, light it from the brazier and head toward the triple-gun.

Felix fired.

This time, his shot went wide.

He still struck his target, sinking the ball into the wolf’s stomach, just above his right hip. The force of the shot knocked him to his knee, and his face contorted in agony. But it was not enough to kill.

With an enraged glare that Felix could have sworn was aimed right at him, the wolf rose up on shaking legs and drove his match into the cannon’s touch-hole.

The _crack_ of the cannon’s firing in concert was absolutely thunderous, but the terror of its roar paled in comparison to that of the flaring comets that came sailing out of its mouths, trailing steam as they arced through the sky. Felix watched, rooted in place by shock, as one ball punched a blackening hole through the forward sail before it plunged into the main mast. The second skipped across the weather deck until it collided with the housing that led down to the hull, while the last disappeared through the _Wavebreak’s_ keel. Wherever they buried into the ship they sank through the wood as if it were butter, the timber squealing in protest, like a hog put to the brand, before it burst into flames.

Before too long, parts of the _Wavebreak_ were completely ablaze. And the conflagration was spreading quickly.

 

 

Nick and Judith stared in horror as the blaze on the _Wavebreak’s_ deck began to grow and spread. A hellish torrent of fire was swiftly consuming the main deck while plumes of smoke erupted from the gaps at the ship’s bow, a clear sign that the hold below was aflame. The main mast looked like a tall pine struck by lightning, wreathed with a girdle of licking flames, while its sail scorched and curled and began to vanish like a melting icesheet. Many were trying desperately to quench the flames by hurling buckets of bilge water, or even upending their canteens at them. But it was hopeless. The fire spread relentlessly, a glutton for the ship’s timber and the tar between.

In what seemed no time at all, a good portion of the _Wavebreak’s_ weather deck was being devoured by the atrocious inferno, burning brighter and hotter than the sun over a Ja’karin desert. The sailors who could not retreat to safety began to throw themselves overboard, splashing and floundering in the ocean below. Some of them burned as they fell.

Judith was motionless, save for the fearful twitch of her nose and ears.

_A dragon that breathes fire..._

She heard the shrieks coming from the _Wavebreak’s_ crew, terrified or agonized or both, rising above the muskets and cannons and the snarl of the flames. In an instant, she was taken back to another time. Not her own mammals, but Porcine sailors, burning like paper dolls. Wailing at the top of their lungs.

“G-Get ropes overboard for those mammals in the water!” Judith shouted, now atremble from ear to toe with rage and fear in equal amount. “Starboard cannons, prepare to fire once the _Predator_ is alongside us! Eli! Slow us down! I want a clear aim on that damned ship!”

Riley raided his stores of bravery and rushed to his task while Eli pulled the helm hard to port, calling out to have the staysails’ lines slackened. The _Invulnerable_ began to shed its speed as the wind fought against the rudder’s resistance.

But the _Predator_ was already starting to pass the _Wavebreak_ ’s bow, and Judith realised that she had done too little and too late. No matter how fast they slowed -- and slowing was far from what a rated warship was best at -- the _Predator_ would have the cover of the _Wavebreak_ as it overtook them.

And there were still sailors aboard, trying to tame the raging flames or leaping to the safety of the water.

“Hold that order to fire!” Judith yelled to the gun crews. “Hold! We’ll only hit the _Wavebreak_!” There was no way she’d be held accountable for landing shots on her own ship.

The _Predator_ , of course, had no such compunction.

“Broadside incoming!” came the warning cry from further down the _Invulnerable’s_ deck, and every mammal went for cover. Nick found it behind the quarterdeck map table, while Judith simply dropped flat against the floor.

A second later, the _Predator_ unleashed its ferocious barrage, pummelling both ships with a torrent of obliterating iron. Some of its shots arced over the _Wavebreak’s_ deck and crashed into the _Invulnerable._ Others passed through the _Wavebreak’s_ bulwarks and railings first, showering Judith’s ship with a hail of burning debris.

When she opened an eye and looked up, she was surprised to see some towering shape blocking her view. The shape turned out to be MacHorn, who leaned his face down to hers.

“Are you hurt?” he asked in his baritone rumble.

Judith glanced at MacHorn’s leg. A flaming wedge of timber, easily as round and long as her arm, was protruding from the rhino’s thigh like a torch from a bracket. A fleabite would cause lesser mammals greater discomfort.

Behind them, Nick got to his feet. Some lit timber had landed on the quarterdeck table and was singing a hole in the map. He knocked it away, scattering the tokens to the floor. “Is she alright?” he called.

“Yes, I’m fine…” Judith replied, getting to her feet.

And then a titanic force knocked her straight down again.

The same force threw Nick off his feet, and he landed hard on his back with a grunt. Even MacHorn found his balance challenged.

The magazine on the _Wavebreak_ had just gone up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...looks like Silas has Bronhelm knocked into a cocked hat for deviousness.
> 
> I don't usually do the supplementary history lesson at the end of chapters, but heated shot was apparently commonly used against ships up until someone had the idea to cover ships in iron. It was fired from land fortifications -- evidently it posed a danger to be doing it aboard a ship, and hence the general surprise from the Zoohaven navy at seeing such a weapon brought to bear from the decks. There's not that much to note about it; I was just surprised when I thought I dreamed the idea out of nowhere and then had all the various invented details confirmed. Curious.
> 
> Oh, and yeah, Felix is dead. Bummer. Sorry.


	5. A Throw of the Dice

Nick had been amidst all number of tremendous forces in his time. Cannons pounding. Powder kegs going up in flames. An earthquake that struck a small island he’d dropped anchor at once, while he’d been visiting the local brothel -- now, _that_ had been a fun day.

But the ferocity of the _Wavebreak’s_ arsenal erupting was something else entirely.

He couldn’t even hear the explosion properly, for it made his ears ring like the bells at a pugilist’s tournament. He definitely felt the blast wave, however; it ruffled his fur and thrummed deep in his bones. He opened his eyes and saw lumps of burning detritus flying like fireworks into the sky. The frigate was practically split in two, its gaping ends tipping into the sea and taking huge gulps of water. All that would save the ship from burning to cinders now was that it would shortly be swallowed by the icy deep.

The _Wavebreak_ was finished.

Judith got back on her feet and stared as the sundered vessel _,_ still aflame like a funeral pyre, began to vanish beneath the waves, entirely beyond rescue. Those able mammals still aboard were abandoning the ship, but not all who were splashing in the water were making an effort to swim for rescue aboard the _Invulnerable._ Many floated lifeless, their bodies blackened or mangled, food for whatever ocean-dwelling scavengers would have them.

Judith couldn’t tell if there was a panther amongst the dead.

She felt intensely cold at that moment -- she would later recognise it as shock -- but some automatic part of her, the part that knew how to command, took control and set her to action.

“Riley. We have four lifeboats aboard?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“See that they’re all lowered, to make safe any survivors of that hell-storm. Eli,” she said, pointing to where the _Predator_ was sailing past the disappearing remains of the frigate. “Full sail, and bring us around the _Wavebreak._ We’re going to chase that black dog down.”

Nick came towards her, his face twisted up with concern.

“Commadore…” he began. If ever there was a moment to try and convince Judith to abandon this fancy of taking the Blackwolf as a captive, then it was now, while a full third of her squadron was in ruins. But Judith was deaf to compromise.

“It’s more important than ever now that I have this criminal bound before me,” she growled. “He will answer for-”

“Oh! Commodore!” Riley cried, his shaking hoof outstretched and pointing. “The Blackwolf isn’t running! He isn’t running at all!”

Judith spun, and saw the _Predator_ continue to turn on its starboard side, setting a course to sail directly behind them.

Her pupils shrunk to pinpoints. _He meant to carry on the fight!_

It seemed unthinkable; the _Predator_ was smaller than the _Invulnerable_ , and by a considerable margin. She still had the _Seastorm_ as well _,_ undamaged and capable. To imagine the _Predator_ could secure complete victory in an extended engagement against those odds was madness.

And she knew that if any enemy had a chance of managing such a feat, it was the Blackwolf; bringing the entire squadron, all three ships, to utter devastation. On her watch. Unless she acted fast.

“Eli! Scratch the pursuit; shed our speed so the Blackwolf can catch us up,” she ordered.

“Aye, Commodore!”

Then she turned to Nick. “Silas wants to do battle, not to flee. I plan to make him rue that decision. Go and take control of the starboard guns. When the Blackwolf comes alongside us, you make him hurt. Tear his masts to splinters. Rips his sails to shreds. Take his speed from him.”

Nick looked Judith up and down. More than ever he wanted to reach out and lay his paw on her arm. To light the candle and banish the darkness.

He couldn’t. But he could do the next best thing.

“I’ll make him hurt, alright,” he snarled.

He saluted -- crisply, regimented -- and then turned to Riley.

“You. Sheep. Come with me.”

 

 

Beck had heard of heated cannonballs before. They were born out of a storied history between fire and naval warfare: jars of flammable oil launched by trebuchets from the decks of ancient galleys; huge ballistae, their bolts coated in flaming pitch; hellish fireships, loaded with dry brush and sulphur, and shunted towards the enemy while blazing like heretical effigies. Any weapon that could deliver the scourge of fire at a distance had obvious utility when the targets were vast, lumbering, and vulnerable to ignition.

But heated cannon balls had never stayed in style. They were, for one thing, profoundly dangerous. In the chaos of a broadside exchange, the gun crews were just as likely to drop their munitions, or spill the fuel from the furnace required to heat the shot, either of which would be enough to set their own ship alight.

 _Evidently, the Blackwolf has found a means of sidestepping these dangers_ , Beck thought grimly as he saw the vast eruption crack the _Wavebreak_ in half. Beck’s first lieutenant, Armand, blanched at the scale of the damage, shaken by the sudden loss of one of their ships.

“Saints,” he gasped in disbelief. “Did the _Wavebreak_ just go up? Are we really down one ship?”

“Hold your tongue,” Beck said sternly. “We knew long before we set sail that the Blackwolf was no tactical simpleton.”

He watched the _Predator_ carefully, watched it set its trajectory to travel behind the _Invulnerable’s_ stern, and assumed the Blackwolf meant to visit a similar fate upon the _Seastorm._ Beck realised this had been the Blackwolf’s plan all along; ever since they had spotted one another as dots on the horizon, and probably even before that, Silas had foreseen how Judith’s ships would approach, had foreseen how to force them to bunch together, like soldiers in a shield-wall. He had played them like a damned fiddle.

The black beast lurking behind his eyes began to extend its claws, and Beck’s anger began to swell. He would not be denied his revenge.

“Bring us around on the port side!” Beck roared; for a small mammal, his voice was thunderously loud. “A full ninety degrees…and then, keep turning!”

His sailing master peered from behind the helm. “We’re not broadsiding?”

“Just do it, or I’ll flog the fur off your mangy back!” Beck snarled.

He could fire his cannons directly into the _Predator’s_ port side, but a broadside often created more panic and noise than damage. The key to inflicting real harm was to fire in line; a cannonade aimed right down the enemy’s length, bouncing shots off the deck and crashing them through everything from the bowsprit through to the rudder.

The Blackwolf, he was sure, was planning to sail around the _Seastorm_ and burn them to ashes. He had to take that eventuality off the table, and if he was going to do that, and also land an enfilade that properly bloodied the _Predator’s_ nose, he was only going to get one chance.

 

 

 “L-Lieutenant,” Riley stuttered, trying and failing to hide an anxious, high-pitched note in his voice. “What are we supposed to do? How on earth can we stop him?”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Nick replied. “You just do as you’re told. I have a plan.”

Riley swallowed. The last time Nick had a plan, their own ship burst into flames. “Do you really think we can survive this, sir?”

Nick was leaning over the gunwale, watching as the tip of the _Predator’s_ bowsprit emerged from behind the _Invulnerable’s_ stern. He looked towards the _Seastorm,_ which was banking hard to port, coming around to bring its guns to bear on the advancing enemy. Nick grinned; thankfully, Beck wasn’t the sort of captain to wait on orders before doing something smart.

He turned back to Riley and gave him a congratulatory slap on the shoulder. “Absolutely. In fact, I plan to give you the best odds at survival.”

“You do?”

“You’re going below. I need you to give direct orders to the crews on the gun decks. You’re to start at the aft, and when I give the signal -- _only_ when I give the signal, do you hear?” He underscored his point with a finger jabbed at Riley’s chest, and the sheep nodded vigorously. “When I give the signal, you command the aft-gun crews to fire. Then you move to the midship guns, and wait for the signal again. Then the guns towards the bow. We fire our broadside in stages. You got that?”

Riley didn’t have the faintest idea what the fox’s ultimate plan was. He simply nodded.

“You got a lucky hole, Riley?”

“A…a hole, sir?”

“A hole. A lucky hole.”

Riley stared at Nick blankly. “I…forgot to…pack one? Sir?”

Nick smirked. “Then we’d better pray we’re good enough to pull this off without luck. Get to it.”

Riley disappeared with trademark speed, and Nick turned his focus back toward the _Seastorm,_ which had gone past perpendicular with the _Invulnerable_ , drawing a bead on the dreaded _Predator._ Beck was clearly waiting for the opportune moment -- when the likelihood of striking the _Invulnerable_ by mistake was limited, when the _Predator_ was in full view. If the _Seastorm’s_ gun crews were worth a damn, they might just help his gamble pay off.

When the moment came, the _Seastorm_ unleashed its fury with a chorus of thunderclaps and blooms of cannon smoke. The barrage tore the _Predator’s_ deck to pieces, opening vicious gashes in its timber. At least one ball bounced off the ship’s terrible triple-gun, denting the iron housing and warping its aim. But most encouraging of all, Nick noticed, some shots had ripped chunks from the _Predator’s_ foremast, leaving it looking like a partly-felled pine. And Nick knew just the sort of nudge to make that timber fall.

Beck had finally made the _Predator_ bleed; now, Nick was going to finish the job, and rip its bloody leg right out of joint.

“Get these cannonades loaded with grapeshot!” he ordered the weather deck gun crews, who began to stuff iron pellets, nails, and whatever other langrage fell to paw down the bores. Then Nick sprinted to the aft of the ship, coming to a halt by the hatchway between the weather deck and below. The _Predator_ was close now; close enough that Nick could see dead wolves on its deck, their blood running down the ship’s scuppers, staining the hull like scarlet war-paint. Peering into the hatch, he called, “Riley, can you hear me? Are the crews ready to fire?”

The sheep appeared, shaking with fear but determined all the same. “They know what to do, Lieutenant,” he called back.

“Hold for my signal,” Nick ordered, looking back to where the _Predator_ was quickly coming alongside the _Invulnerable_. The favoured moment in a straight broadside was when the two ships were directly abreast, so that every shot would strike the target. But Nick was only concerned with three of their cannons across, over the _Invulnerable’s_ four gun-decks; an array of twelve guns, which made for a narrow field of fire. And as soon as the _Predator’s_ wounded foremast passed through that field, he pounced.

“Fire!”

The dozen guns released their volley, blowing holes in the ship’s hull and gunwales. One ball ripped the head clean off a hapless pirate, as cleanly as if an executioner’s blade had done the job. Some of the shots hammered the already damaged mast, but not enough to bring it down.

 “To the next section, Riley!” Nick shouted, and rushed to the next hatch at the _Invulnerable’s_ middle himself. Nearly on arrival he repeated the order, and another twelve cannon blasts bombarded the enemy.

This time, the foremast yielded utterly before the _Invulnerable’s_ wrath. With its immense weight pressing down on this weak point, the mast began to warp until it cracked and splintered. With a deep yawn, a dying exhalation, the mast tipped sideways, its rigging pulling taut as it fell and then snapping with a volley of whip-cracks. The base of the mast staved a chasm in the _Predator’s_ foredeck, while the rest of its significant volume splashed into the sea.

Nick sneered victoriously. _Let’s see you outmanoeuvre anyone now._

But his triumph was short lived, as the _Predator_ answered with a punishing return volley, fired so close that Nick could taste the smoke. He dropped to his belly for cover, but this proved unnecessary; not one of the _Predator’s_ shots came crashing across the weather deck.

In fact, somehow, each and every ball had struck the same point against the _Invulnerable’s_ hull, all falling within a few yards of one another. Nick leaned over the side, and observed a huge gap in the side of the ship, wide enough for three of him to stand in side by side.

Nick was shocked; no gun crew could target a barrage that accurately. And his shock swiftly turned to dread when he realised that the hole fell directly over the _Invulnerable’s_ magazine. If the enemy could light a fire in there…

“Riley! To the forward guns! Quick! Go!” Nick shouted into the hatch. Then he turned back to the gun crews. “Aim your grapeshot at that triple-cannon! Fire!” He could see the _Predator’s_ crew labouring to turn the triple-gun upon the _Invulnerable’s_ exposed weakness, but they took cover behind their weapon’s shielding as the cannonades vented a rain of projectiles upon them, and not a single enemy fell.

“Aim your guns at their foredeck! At that cannon, there!” Nick roared to the Blue Jackets nearby, and a shot line began to form, suppressing the enemy with a hail of musket fire. With no musket to paw, Nick drew and fired both his pistols at them, his shots ricocheting off the cannon’s frame, landing close enough to startle and slow the wolves, but not to stop them.

But the enemy was keen to protect their malevolent armaments, and responded with a volley of their own. One ball plunged into the neck of an unfortunate antelope, knocking him backwards into Nick, sending them both sprawling on the deck. Blood splashed across Nick’s face, hot and sticky, coppery on his tongue. He kicked the corpse away and scrambled towards the hatch, keeping low to avoid the shots whistling overhead.

“Riley! Fire at w-”

 

 

Not once in all her days had Judith felt so helpless as she did watching the explosion consume the bow of the _Invulnerable_.

When she and Felix had decided, in the dark of the _Invulnerable’s_ hold, that they should spend their lives on a chance to slit Bronhelm’s throat; when that hulking swine had knocked her down, and stood ready to visit all his black hate upon her; all those other terrible moments when the odds stacked against her had seemed so steep -- at least in those moments her blade had been by her side, and bequeathed her a chance to turn the tide of the fight.

Somehow, this time, it had all escaped her control.

She watched as the _Predator_ launched three blistering rounds right into the _Invulnerable’s_ hull. She watched a plume of black smoke and flame erupt from the gaping crater, like a bellowing volcano. She felt a flash of heat and the deck creak underfoot as a titanic blast burst the side of her ship apart.

And somewhere in the midst of that hellish maelstrom, in that sea of fire and ruin, was Nick.

Nick, not her. Nick, following her orders.

“Oh, Saints…” she gasped.

The explosion had butchered the side of the _Invulnerable_ , tearing a ragged, flaming breach from deck to keel.  At once, every able mammal rushed to quell the fire and to patch what they could of the hole through which the encroaching sea was pouring. If they worked fast, the _Invulnerable_ could be saved.

But its fight was over.

There was no hope of chasing the _Predator,_ which sailed on past the floundering warship, free to set sail for the safety of the limitless ocean. By this time, the _Seastorm_ had turned full circle, but it would be suicide for the frigate to chase down the escaping pirates alone.

They had gambled on this one throw of the dice; the best shot anyone had ever had at bringing the Blackwolf to heel. And they had failed.

There was nothing anyone could do but watch their foe disappear into the distance, off to become a specter once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's funny what you learn in the process of writing stories, particularly in terms of your vocabulary. I'd always taken 'sundered' to mean wrecked, but it specifically means to 'split apart'. Like, "Sunder this banana, and then add ice-cream and hot fudge." And I used the phrase 'pitched battle' a few times in this chapter to, taking it to mean a noisy of frantic engagement; actually, it's a battle to which both sides have previously agreed on the time and place, as opposed to an ambush or skirmish. Huh. This is the danger when you interpret phrases based on context of phonetics, I guess.
> 
> Thanks to those enlightened types posting historical corrections by the way. Keep them coming. I won't heed everything (this is, first and foremost, an entertaining adventure story), but I'd still like to know where I've deviated from reality.


	6. Confession

Nick felt awful when he awoke. Head aching. The taste of blood on his tongue. His ears felt wet.

Then he realised that, actually, his whole body felt wet. This was neatly explained by the fact that he was floating in the ocean.

He was bobbing amongst the flotsam of the battle, amongst charred crates and barrels and cannon-rent deck wood -- the blood of wounded ships. The strong current had carried him away from the sortie; the surviving ships were nothing but blotches on the horizon under a billow of dark smoke, an ugly black smear against the overcast sky. Memories of the chaos that had preceded his predicament came back in a flood: an exchange of cannon fire; the _Predator_ brining its terrible might to bear on their arsenal; a bright light, and a colossal force that had pitched him into the sea.  Nick had evidently been unconscious for several hours after that, for the sun was sinking low in the sky and taking the world to darkness as it went.

Nick’s throat tightened with panic. He had floated miles away. There wasn’t a scrap of a chance that he could swim back.

But he choked back his fear, fought it back like morning bile after a rough night of hard drink. Any chance of him finding his way out of danger was predicated on him keeping his head. If he stayed calm, he’d recognise an opportunity when it presented itself.

He started to look amongst the wreckage for something large and dependably buoyant, and spotted some sturdy-looking piece of debris floating not too far away. He started to swim towards it, and discovered an unpleasant ache burning in his shoulder. Something must have struck him high on the back when he’d gone overboard, and he was doubtlessly bruising under his fur right now. It wasn’t the worst pain he’d ever had to endure, but it made swimming and drawing breath a greater trial than it ought to be. He might have thanked the Saints that hadn’t been reduced to scorched fur and cooked flesh by the explosion, but Nick wasn’t in the mood to offer thanks.

_We Emerge Unscathed, huh?_ Nick thought bitterly as he struggled through the lapping waves. _Sure we do. Find me the bloody cur who carved that nonsense, and I’ll teach him all about We Emerge Unscathed._

The drifting debris turned out to be a section of smashed hull, and as he approached it he realised that there were two bodies slumped across it already; Blue Jackets who had been determined to avoid the fate of drowning after they’d narrowly avoided the fate of burning to death. Nick caught the side of the debris and, wincing in pain, clawed his way aboard, drawing himself out of the water to waist height.

One of the bodies aboard this improvised life-raft was a young lion with whom Nick had not had the pleasure, who like him was sprawled over the edge with his haunches dangling in the water.

The other body, lying prostrate over the hull piece, was Felix. His uniform torn to shreds. Unconscious. But breathing.

He must have been thrown clear of the _Wavebreak_ when its magazine detonated and had somehow ended up on this fragment of his wrecked vessel; a stroke of good fortune, for otherwise the panther’s bulk would have dragged him to the sea floor.

“Well, Felix,” Nick said. “Maybe there’s something to be said for luck after all; although, it’s not easy to see how we’re favoured at the moment.”

Nick turned to study his other shipmate more closely, and he realised the lion was only half of one. Some tremendous force had liberated the sailor of his legs, leaving just his top half behind. Nick winced, and prayed that it was a cannon that had done the damage and not the jaws of some ravenous shark.

“Sorry,” Nick muttered, shoving the lion’s remains off the raft to disappear into the murky deep. “There’s hardly any point in rescuing half of you, is there?”

Now that he was in marginally greater safety, Nick scanned his surroundings and spotted something rising out of the water in the distance, something of sufficient size to potentially offer salvation. He began to paddle the raft towards it, grunting in discomfort at the pain this visited upon his injured arm.

As it turned out, “salvation” was a ghost-grey stony island, protruding up from the ocean like a canine fang; the tip of some ancient mountain long ago swallowed by a rising sea. It was only a few dozen yards in circumference, stained green and white with algae and bird shit, without so much as a hint of vegetation or fresh water.

A lifeless rock. A tombstone.

The debris raft made landfall with a sad _clonk_. Nick splashed off, then seized Felix by his shoulders and dragged him onto the rocks, struggling with the treacherous slime underfoot as he went. The panther weighed as much as a crate of cannonballs, and by the time Nick had lugged him out of the shallows and onto the island proper the fox was breathing heavily and his shoulder was throbbing. Their raft began to drift away, but Nick didn’t give it so much as a second thought; without a sail or oars, there wasn’t any hope of steering it in the right direction. It could only carry them aimlessly into the limitless blue expanse until they died of thirst, or until some stormwave burst it to pieces.

There was no opinion from Felix on the matter. He had begun to stir, but was only able to mutter incoherently, like some pitiable lunatic starved of sense. Nick put it down to shock. Partly owing, of course, to the fact that the proud captain had just seen his ship and crew torched. Few could weather such a ghastly spectacle without effect.

The other reason was that Felix’s right arm was in ruins.

His sleeve and fur must have caught fire before the explosion had pitched him overboard. The seawater had put out the flames, but the damage had already been done by then. There wasn’t a single hair from his fingertip to his elbow, and the fur up to his shoulder was coming away in clumps. Wherever the skin showed, it was wrinkled and painfully red, here and there turned to black scales by the intensity of the fire. The harm would certainly have been enough to hurl Felix into debilitating shock.

Nick had seen worse wounds before. He had not seen anyone recover from worse, though; certainly not without a good physician.

He searched the island over for any resource that might be of aid to them and found nothing. A lone amber-shelled crab danced at the island’s flat peak, waving its claws at the intruders, angry that the sovereignty of its valueless kingdom had been breached. Beyond this, the island was barren.

Still sodden trough to the skin, Nick pulled off his longcoat and tricorne and arranged them on a rock to dry, and then did the same with his boots after he tipped the seawater out. Then he went to check on Felix.

The panther’s eyes were open but blank, staring at everything and nothing. His breath came in ragged gasps.

“Heat…the heat…” he muttered, over and over, rasping like one who was afflicted and whose mind was gone.

With some effort, Nick managed to peel Felix’s soaked jacket off from around his broad shoulders, and he laid it down beside his own clothes. Then he clambered to the top of the rock, kicked the crab off its throne, and sat down to take stock of what possessions he had retained.

He still had _Renascitur_ , as well as his brace of pistols, and he lay these down reverently like offerings at an altar. He had lost his spare shot and powder, however, along with his compass and canteen and spyglass; all swallowed up by the ocean’s infinite gullet. He noticed with some chagrin that he had his pipe but no tobacco. Overall, they were poorly supplied to survive more than a couple of days.

Standing on this island’s peak, observed by nothing besides an eddy of croaking gulls above, Nick stared out at the emptiness around him. At the flat horizon. The unspoiled view. The perfect radius.

He sat down and waited.

 

 

When night fell, it was as cold and black as death itself, absent any light beyond the stars, a swarm of celestial fireflies far above.

Nick sought comfort by looking for the constellations he knew: Polanova, or the Northern Light, friend to all sailors; Gahora, the old god of war; Lux Alpha; the Bastion; the Speartip; Eluvara’s Smile. They twinkled down at him, oblivious to all suffering. A slender crescent was all that could be seen of the moon, and Nick thought back to all the strange and fanciful stories he had ever heard that explained why the moon waxed and waned as it did. His favourite had been told to him by a grizzled bear aboard a merchant galley, years and years ago. On his word, there was an old ursine legend that the moon was, in fact, a great hole in the sky, a portal to a golden realm of infinite pleasure, and that all that was good and satisfying in our own world spilled out of this luminous aperture. The citizens of that perfect paradise, however, were fearful that the denizens below would find some way to scale the heights of the sky, to invade and degenerate their utopia, and in their possessive fear they toiled nightly to roll a giant stone over the hole, and in doing so permanently seal off the world above from that below. Often it seemed as though they had succeeded, when the moon showed but a shadow of itself, only for the stone to slip away again.

One night, the boulder would rest firm, and then all happiness on earth would cease to be.

Well…Nick didn’t favour the story because it made sense.

“You could have run,” Felix said, breaking the silence which, here in the middle of the ocean, was immense and complete. He was conscious, but his voice was frail and slight. He battled to get his words out without them quivering.

“I could have run,” replied Nick.

“And here you are.”

Nick sat, quiet and thoughtful, drawing deep lungfuls of the cold salt air.

“Actually, I couldn’t have run. I thought about it. A lot. About how clearly it was the smart course of action. And thinking about it was all I did. Turns out, I’m no freer to leave than you; than the moon is to uproot and wander into the void.”

“You must really be dedicated to her, then,” Felix said.

Nick looked over his shoulder at the panther, his eyes narrowing. How could Felix suspect anything? He and Judith had taken care to leave no clues as to their feelings. Was there some evidence they had carelessly let slip? Some window over which they had failed to draw the curtains?

And then he thought, what does it matter? What does it matter, out here on this bleak rock in the middle of nowhere?

He thought about confessing all. I’ve lain with Judith. I love her. We’d kill and die for one another.

Felix interrupted before he could.

“So am I. From the moment I first saw her in action. The way she commanded. The way she fought. She governed herself with such humility, such temperance. She was the antithesis of that swaggering bravado and self-assured arrogance I was learning to despise in a captain. I knew then, here is a mammal who will let nothing stand in the way of what is right and just. Who knew evil, and would not abide it in any form. She was exactly what I hoped to become.”

His voice was shrinking with the effort of his admissions. He coughed.

“So, I pledged myself to her service. I swore I’d be an unyielding foundation on which she could raise each new victory. And I failed her…”

“Oh, by the Saints. Stop all that kit’s whining,” Nick rebuked sharply. “You say you’ve got such a well of pride and respect for her; what would she make of your self-pity? So you failed. You’ve done it before. You failed against Bronhelm, remember? He opened you up like a clamshell. You didn’t surrender to misery after that. What’s so different now? Are you really so desperate for a word of solace from some battered old pirate? Pathetic.”

Any other time, that sort of talk would have been an invitation for Felix to unsheathe his steel. This time, he was silent.

“You saw this,” he said eventually. “Saw it complete before we even left Zooport. I thought it was just your gutterbred disrespect -- all that talk about slitting the Blackwolf’s throat. But you knew it was the only way to keep us alive. To keep her alive. And now she must face him without us…”

Nick looked back up at the moon above. The stone, rolling into place. Happiness coming to an end.

“How’s your arm,” he asked.

Felix winced. “It needs a surgeon.”

They spoke no more, for there were no more words to say.

 

 

Three days later, Nick was coming to terms with the fact that he would die here.

He decided this worthless grey spire was probably unnamed and decided to dub it Fox’s Grave. He lamented that only two islands bore his name, until it occurred to him that there was no possible way to pass on that he had done anything to this rock other than die and rot upon it.

He was hungry, but it was thirst that was starting to drive him to madness. His throat and eyes burned as if he were standing over the woodsmoke of a campfire. His head ached, and his fingers tingled. He could feel his tongue beginning to swell inside his mouth, bloating like the flesh of something dead. Surrounded on all sides by immeasurable quantities of water, and knowing if he succumbed to desperation and drank from the salt-poisoned ocean that, in just a few hours, he would feel twice as poorly; would have clawed his way that much closer to death. It was torment beyond bearing.

Felix was in even worse condition. Yesterday, he had gone to sleep and now would not wake. He was still breathing, but shallow and strangled. As a grey elder might, in their final hours. Death-rattling.

Nick had spread seaweed on Felix’s nose to ward off sunburn and thrown his coat over the panther’s burned arm, which was growing ever more swollen and red, the skin stretched taut and beginning to smell. It was the best Nick could do for him, and it was nothing at all.

So. What was to happen next?

Nick wanted to pretend that killing himself held some fear, but he knew he was no more than a day away from begging to be put out of his misery, and perhaps from being too weak to do so himself. He felt that Felix would brand it a coward’s mercy, except he was too diminished to breathe a word of refusal. Of course, Nick’s pistols were useless without powder or shot, so he would have to run his sword over their wrists to see it done; the irony of using a blade dubbed _Rebirth_ to end their lives brought a grim smile to his face. A smile that pained the dry flesh around his mouth.

It was time.

“Are you of the Herd?” Nick asked the unresponsive Felix. “It seems right to have some scripture read by the graveside, and I don’t know any passages. Except one; my nanny used to quote it when she flogged me for misbehaving. Saints, did that she-devil know how to swing a leather strap.” He smiled at the distant memory, weighing all the sand that had passed through the hourglass between then and now. “And I have no Blackcoin, either. Looks like we’ll be crewing the Dead Ship, then. If they’d have as sorry a pair as we.”

He was speaking of coins and holy writ, but it was Judith he was thinking of. The sweetness of their relationship. The briefness of it. A treasure of unspeakable value that he’d possessed for a blink of time before it had slipped out of his grasp. But so it was with these things. Maybe it was in their nature to end this way. It didn’t make it hurt any less.

He looked down at Felix, curled up like a babe on the rough stone, oblivious to Nick and to himself and to all the world around him and its imminent end.

What does it matter?

“I’ve lain with Judith,” Nick said softly. “I love her. I’d kill and die for her. And I’d give anything to see her one last time.”

Nick fell silent, and let the sounds of the ocean close over him. The gentle lap of the ocean against the island’s shore. The sea breeze whistling amidst the stones. A gull reeling overhead, squawking in displeasure or delight -- who could tell?

He drew _Renascitur_ from its sheath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm. Unintuitively, my being on holiday has meant less spare time for me to write. I'll try not to leave you in the lurch for too long.
> 
> This chapter precipitated a bit of discussion about when and if it's good to kill main characters. I can appreciate those who dislike it, and most of the time I'd probably side with you, but on survey a lot -- an embarrassing amount -- of my favourite fiction involves the death of a main character. Like, DiCaprio's headshot in the Departed. Well, as I said, if you're going to take that path then it's an absolute that you must spend time with the characters before hand so that their absence carries emotional weight. 
> 
> And I've caught up on my chapter art. I really want to go back and spruce up the first few stories I wrote in the same fashion. One of these days...


	7. Rescue

The two ships clung to each other, creaking as they rocked in the ocean’s gentle swell, bound together by ropes and gangplanks. It had been necessary for the _Seastorm_ to serve as a crutch for the damaged _Invulnerable_ , robbed of its sea-worthiness by the battle, and the larger ship leant against the frigate like a soldier nursing a wounded knee.

Not everything had unfolded with such poor fortune, though; the _Invulnerable_ had been built with a split magazine, and the blast had not spelled doom for the warship the way it had for the _Wavebreak_. Nor had the flames wrought damage of an irreparable nature, as the water that came spilling through the breach had extinguished much of the inferno.

But these minor concessions had to be weighed against the tally of consequences. They had lost one ship. Many of the _Wavebreak’s_ crew had been slain, the captain amongst them. The infirmary was overflowing with the wounded. The _Invulnerable_ was not fit to sail. The _Predator_ had escaped. The Zoohaven morale was all but decimated.

The scales were hardly well-balanced.

At least the _Invulnerable_ had not capsized from its damage -- one small mercy that had been granted them -- and much of that owed to Judith’s quick thinking. When it became clear that the ship was not going to right itself, she had ordered the spare sail to be brought up on deck and painted with pitch. Then, the crew had slipped it over the bowsprit and let the water carry it under until it came to rest covering the hole, where lashed it in place like gauze over a bullet wound. This canvas bandage had kept them afloat long enough to sail clear of the dangerous nearby reef, out into open waters, where the _Seastorm_ could safely lend the larger ship its buoyancy.

Judith had seen to righting their numerous troubles, working all through the night and well into the following day, taking no sleep and little food. Her manner was much subdued, and she went about as a cold automaton, avoiding conversation and speaking without warmth. The lustre of her purple eyes was gone; now, they were more like cold chips of flint. The accumulation of loss had obviously struck her hard.

She stood on the main deck with her senior officers, hearing MacHorn’s report that much of their blackpowder store was gone and a number of their cannons had fallen into the ocean following the blast. She thanked and dismissed him, and turned to her first lieutenant for the next matter.

“Commodore,” Harley said, “the surgeon is requesting that the additional rum rations be requisitioned to the infirmary as antiseptic. It seems he’s running very low on carbolic acid. I know that won’t do much for the mood of the crew, but-”

“See that it’s done,” Judith said levelly.

Harley exchanged a brief glance with Lars, who returned an uncertain look before he saluted and went to make it so. He was smart enough to keep his mouth shut, whereas Harley was nearly famous for his inability to control his tongue.

“Commodore, have you…ah…would you perchance take a mug of coffee?” he asked.

Judith stared at him blankly, as if he had asked her a complicated riddle in a foreign tongue.

“What?”

“Sorry, Commodore…it’s just, if you wanted…if you weren’t…”

“I am fine, thank you,” she replied, and Harley’s mouth tightened. In her tone and manner, it was clear that, while she was functioning as a commander, something important, something at the very heart of her being, was dying or dead. Part of him wanted to push on.

I’m sorry the number of dead is so steep. I’m sorry about Felix.

I’m sorry Nick is gone.

He felt these were things Judith needed to hear, but not from him. It was too much; a profane breach of hierarchy. Even Harley would not dare to speak so freely.

“With your permission, Ma’am, I’d take leave to see if Dreyfus needs anything else. Make sure the comfort of the injured is properly seen to. Make sure they all pull through.”

She nodded, and barely noticed him go; she was watching Beck approach, one paw leading a young and wretched-looking margay, the other clutching a roll of parchment.

“Commodore,” Beck said with a smart salute. “I have a report from the repair crew working on the hull, and two other urgent matters. The first...”

He gave the margay, Joshua, a callous shove forward, where he stood slumped and dejected, incapable of meeting Judith’s gaze. There was a gob of saliva on his cheek where someone had spat at him, strands of it rolling down onto his neck.

“Master Whiskerton was caught hiding during the battle, in an empty barrel below deck -- most likely, he was looking for the best odds of survival should the ship go down.”

Joshua let out a ragged sob. “I’m sorry,” he moaned.

“Quiet!” Beck roared, his voice an iron rod that brooked no argument. “You have shamed yourself and sullied the pride of the navy entire. There’s nothing more sickening than a world where cowards live at the expense of the brave who burn and die.”

The margay looked down again, unable to bear the piercing, hateful stares of those around him. Riley in particular had barely-bridled murder in his eyes; he had one arm in a sling, and his wool was clipped short since so much of it had been singed. His survival was nothing short of miraculous, given he had been right in the heart of the fire that Joshua had been so desperate to avoid.

Judith, in contrast, stared at him without emotion, as an accountant balancing the ledger. The Whiskertons were a prominent and noble family, and were expecting their son to return as a valiant officer, not an unrepentant coward. More importantly, failures of bravery were beyond tolerance. The matter demanded a punishment.

“Ten strokes over the barrel,” she said. “Nothing but bread and water forthwith. His rations can go to someone who has earned them. Don’t kill him -- we need all able paws fit to do work.”

Beck nodded, and leant to Joshua’s ear. “This will go to the ship’s logs,” he hissed, “and midshipmammals with nothing therein but a catalogue of cowardice do not go far. You’ll need to do something pretty heroic to redeem yourself. You’ll probably get yourself killed in the act.”

The weeping margay was led away, and Beck turned to the second matter, unrolling the map he had brought with.

“Ma’am, I’ve been reviewing the possibilities of places we can take shelter, resupply and complete repairs. As you predicted, the options are limited. Most of the ports within reach are under Bersesian administration. I’d strongly advise against dropping anchor at any of those; Bersei is no strong ally of Zoohaven. There is, however, one freeport at Tor-Kropa that we could reach, providing our repairs hold and we encounter no storm weather. It is a merchant port; we’ll be paying dearly for the privilege of docking at their harbour.”

“We have the means,” Judith replied. “It will only be until the _Invulnerable_ is fully repaired and our stores are replenished. It will suit.” She started to walk towards the ship’s aft, motioning for Beck to follow. “How go the temporary repairs?”

“They’ve laid planks against the hole and tarred over them,” Beck said, “and they are proving perfectly waterproof. Samuel is suggesting they take an extra two days to double-coat their work, and to mount additional braces, just to be sure.”

“Tell him they have one day,” Judith said. “I want us to sail on as soon as physically possible.”

“…I’ll pass your order along,” Beck said, but the faintest note of disagreement crept into his tone, and Judith’s ears flicked at it.

“You don’t approve?”

“It’s rare that accepting the wisdom of your best trained mammals goes unrewarded,” Beck explained. “And one might also wonder what about our circumstance demands such haste.”

Judith paused for a moment and tried to clear her mind. Beck may be subordinate to her command, but he had the greater store of experience and was her senior by a considerable margin. She refused to be short with him, regardless of how she felt -- so filled up with exhaustion and bitterness that she imagined at any moment her skin could crack and torrents of it would come spilling out. Beck deserved better than that, and she doused her flaring temper completely, burying it from the air that threatened to give it life.

“We’re inexcusably exposed here,” Judith said. “If he wished it, Silas would only have to return to the co-ordinates of our engagement and find our ships entwined and incapable of combat. He could destroy us with ease.”

“Precisely -- _if_ he wished it,” Beck said. “Doesn’t that beg the question of why Silas departed in the first place? I think we dealt him greater damage than appearances indicated when he escaped -- damage he’d be yet unrecovered from. Surely he would have remained and slaughtered us completely if it were otherwise.”

“Possibly. And it’s just as possible that we are still in some dire scheme of his orchestration. That we’re doing exactly as he expects.”

Beck shook his head. “I know the Blackwolf is not to be underestimated, but you said it yourself -- he is flesh and blood, and all their attendant weaknesses. Are we in danger of forgetting this?”

Judith sighed, and turned to face the open ocean, resting against the gunwale. The mild breeze made her ears sway.

“Did you see the _Predator’s_ gunports? See the width of them?”

“I did.”

“I thought it was to accommodate cannons of a heavy gauge. That he opted for brute force over number in the equation of firepower.” She smiled bitterly. “But no. The _Predator’s_ deck cannons are on swivelling mounts, built in some clever way to absorb the force of their gun’s recoil. The breadth of those ports allows his crew to shift their aim laterally.”

Beck looked at her. “Are you certain?”

“How else could he have arranged a pattern of fire that caved such a breach in our hull? It’s impossible under any other circumstances. And that rotating battery of cannons? That fire-spitting devil? Another device of inexplicable origin. Not only did he have these unheard-of innovations, but he knew exactly how to leverage them for maximum effect. He guessed or he somehow _knew_ the formation we would be sailing in, and how to perfectly reign all our advantages in and turn them against us. We knew of the Blackwolf was vicious and calculating -- in greater measure than we, than _I_ , was prepared to meet -- and to this we must also add his preparation. It borders on omniscience. Nick warned us…”

His name hung in the air, and silence reigned for some time before Beck spoke.

“If this is the case, then we should return home immediately.”

That shook Judith from her semi-consciousness, and she turned her eyes, wide and disbelieving, on the racoon.

“What?”

“If we have brought every ounce of sweat and skill we can muster, and have still fallen short in our estimation of the threat this wolf poses, then we should sail back to Zooport. To request a fleet of greater size.”

“You know the Admiralty would never approve it,” Judith said. “If I take our ships back to Zooport now then that is where they’ll remain. It would be an admission of defeat.”

“Then so be it. We’ll pay the price of being labelled failures. But there is also a price to pay if we carry on, and I guarantee you the prices will not tally equally; the latter may cost each and every life under your command.”

Beck could see the shock evident on Judith’s face, could see her struggling to contain her disgust with the suggestion. He reached out a paw and placed it on her trembling shoulder.

“Commodore…you know who I am. You know my story. There isn’t a mammal walking the face of this earth with more hatred for Silas than I. So when I say that the fate that could befall us all should we pursue him now concerns me, you know it is the voice of reason speaking. It was a good plan, Commodore. I truly doubt anyone could have done better. But now Silas knows that Zoohaven is hunting him, and he knows the number of our force, and we no longer have the element of surprise. We don’t know where to find him. We’ll be lashing out blindly.”

His words rolled over Judith, and she considered them while she drank in deep breaths. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him.

“I’m going to retire to my quarters,” she said, and Beck’s ears dipped. “It’s been far too long since I rested, and I fear my judgement may begin to suffer if I postpone it further. Tell Samuel he has a day. Once the boats we sent out to recover the _Wavebreak’s_ supplies and its dead return, we’ll make for Tor-Kropa. Can I leave this in your paws?”

“Yes, Commodore.”

Beck saluted and departed. Judith turned, and the few sailors who had been working within earshot very promptly returned to their tasks. Judith kept walking towards the aft of the ship, and realised she was moving with the erratic jerk of one sleep deprived. She poured all her remaining control into halting that weakness until she covered the distance to the captain’s quarters, passed through it, and shut the door firmly behind her.

Once inside, she slipped out of her coat and hung it on a peg so provided for. Then she stepped out of her buckled shoes, placing them neatly by the door, and then she stood quietly. She found the relative calm of her quarters did little to improve her mood. If anything, it merely offered a more serene place for her to measure and sort just how much had gone wrong. Beck was correct; her planning, good or otherwise, had yielded nothing, and their next move against the Blackwolf would be bat-blind. And, try though she might to look for some other explanation, she felt that the blame rested wholly on her shoulders.

If she had just thought further ahead. Been one step quicker. Perhaps if she had been clever enough to devise some other approach beyond storming in to deliver all their might in one relentless blow. If she’d thought of some way to sneak up on him, as quiet as a mouse.

And what if she had heeded Nick’s advice? What if she’d buried her honour, that beautifully ornate yet paper-thin shield, and been determined to kill her foe from the very first?

Her words, her vows, had cost them all dearly. Had cost…

She suddenly felt a very unfamiliar urge for a stiff drink, and she went to the cabinet where a set of yet-unused effects suiting a commodore could be found, including a decanter of brandy, scaled for her use, and a pair of ornate carved glasses.

She picked up a glass and the decanter, pouring herself a generous measure and swallowing it in one mouthful. Then she poured a second and placed the decanter back on the shelf. This time she held the glass up for inspection, and she noticed that the cabin’s lamplight, passing through the amber liquid and the carved exterior of the glass, cast a checkerboard of intersecting orange lines against the floor which shifted and morphed as the light travelled through the fluid contents of her glass. She was transfixed, absorbed in the simple phenomenon with a kit’s sense of wonder at the ordinary, and she reached up her spare paw as if to catch these lines and watched as they snapped immediately to the undulations of her fingers and palm, and she watched them shifting on this new terrain, and she stared for so long that the lines were finally emblazoned in her mind, in the black depth of her mind, the place whence all dreams come, and in that ruleless place where all can be made real the lines became monstrous and broad and they became towering pillars of fire, and in that nightmare inferno she saw Felix facing her and staring at her and there was pain in his gaze and judgement also both in equal measure and then the flames consumed his body and reduced him to nothing only for him to reform out of the limitless resource of her imagination and then be consumed again and again and again and then, a moment before she screamed in horror, it was Nick that appeared from the borderless darkness, who watched her with that same expression, and he uttered no words for the dead do not speak. Then he too vanished into the fire and the glass fell from Judith’s numb paw.

She did not collapse. She just stood while hot tears streamed from her closed eyes, rolling down her cheeks and chin and spilling onto the front of her shirt, her breath coming in ragged heaves. She finally walked across the room of her cabin, completely oblivious to her bare feet crushing through the broken glass as she went. She tracked bloody footprints all the way to her bed, climbed into it, and lay there.

Sleep did not come for her.

 

 

Nick stopped, hardly daring to believe his eyes.

There was something in the middle distance, coming closer. And although things far away from him had been reduced to a blur by his deterioration -- choking on his own thirst, his eyes raw from the salt wind -- he was not so diminished that he couldn’t recognise the shape for what it was.

A ship. Small. Probably a cutter. But a sailed ship. And it was plying the water right for them. At once Nick realised that Judith would have dispatched the small ships to scavenge the _Wavebreak’s_ lost supplies and to collect survivors. He assumed such a venture would have given up on finding anything further by now, and yet here they were, sailing to his rescue.

Nick looked down at his paws. In one, his scabbard. His polished blade in the other. He had been so close -- well within the minute of his demise. His sword and sheath fell from his open paws, clattering down amongst the rocks below him, and he brought them up to his face. He could not cry -- there wasn’t a drop of water in him to spare -- but he closed his eyes and felt a wave of jubilation wash over him.

Then he let out an elated whoop and scuttled down from the stony peak. He was clumsy from exposure, and he slipped and fell several times in the attempt, but he laughed all the way. When he reached Felix, he grabbed him by the shirtfront and shook him roughly.

“Felix!” he gasped. “Felix! The boat is here! Rescue has come for us! It’s not too late for you.” The panthers head rolled limply on his shoulders, deaf to everything Nick said, but he didn’t care; Felix was still breathing, and so was he.

He clambered back up to the tip of the island and sat, smiling from ear to ear.

And as he sat he watched the blurred ship approach, bouncing over the gentle chop, he realised something was wrong.

This boat did not match the cutter he had seen stowed aboard the _Invulnerable_. That ship flew a square topsail, and this ship had none, flying three headsails in place. A long trailing pennant snapped serpentine from the cutter’s mast; that flag was black. And faraway on the ocean Nick could now make out the flagship that had loosed the smaller, and even through his battered vision, without a spyglass, he could tell that ship had black sails.

That ship was the _Predator._

All the hope that had welled up in him exited in a blink, leaving nothing but hollow dread behind.

The _Predator’s_ cutter slowed to a halt by the rock, dropping its sails and turning as it did. Its crew were all wolves, and they leered at Nick with black cruelty in their eyes. One, his grey fur streaked with ginger, put his booted foot on the rail of the ship and fixed Nick with an almost polite grin.

“G’morning, sir,” he said. “You seem a long way from home. Can we offer you a lift?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My holidays are nearly over, and I don't know what a return to work is going to do to my updating schedule, but I'll certainly endevour to check in bi-weekly at the absolute worst. There were quite a dew threads of plot and development just in the plan, and several more have sprung up in actually fleshing out the plan into a written story. I've already made one slight error -- nothing too bad, but I'd hate to make any more, so I really do have to take my time. It doesn't help that it is disgustingly hot here at the moment, and I can't work at a task for more than a half an hour before I turn into a puddle of oleaginous goo. 
> 
> A couple of things about this chapter. There's a segment at the end that's supposed to capture Judith's imagination tormenting her, and that's where the punctuation goes off the rails. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but if you've never thought there was much need to know your punctuation inside-and-out, then consider that example. You can capture a lot with turns of phrase and a broad vocabulary, but you can't control the emotional pace of a story with these alone. What am I saying? I don't know; it's late and I'm tired. Probably just that, if you're writing a story and want my advice, I'd caution against only googling the punctuation you need at a particular moment. Go and buy a grammar book and give it some considered study, instead. It will repay you several times over.
> 
> Oh, and...Oh no! Poor Nick! Boy, that 'lucky hole' just isn't working out for him lately, hey?


	8. The Wolf Den

Nick sat on the floor of the _Predator’s_ dim hold, his wrists bound before him in cold irons, a heavy chain running from his manacles to a metal ring sunk into the deck. The iron was newly forged and unrusted, and Nick hadn’t even bothered with the impossible thought that he might slip free of his shackles and escape. For one thing, where would he escape to? The only light in that dank place came from lanterns burning outside his cell, but his night-sight was keen enough for him to survey the room, and the results were not encouraging. It may have been a storeroom once, but its supplies had been moved, and its shelves were bare. There was no sign of a hatch or porthole, and the single door was made of rolled iron bars and was firmly locked. And, lest he forget, he was aboard an enemy ship, hidden in the innavigable midst of the vast ocean. Even if he could break his chains, he wasn’t going anywhere.

So, instead of such vain fancy, Nick sat in contemplation -- he cleared a space in his mind and assembled a store of those things in which he could put his trust. Facts. The inarguable truths.

He was alive. He was a prisoner. He was a prisoner to a pack of brigands led by a callous, black-hearted murderer. They had not killed him yet; on the contrary, he had been fed and watered, and he was not too proud to admit that he had taken his captors’ offered aid and swallowed it in heaving mouthfuls -- had drunk a waterskin dry and then roared for more. He was not, at least, in danger of perishing from hunger or thirst.

And then, from this hoard of truths, he began to unravel threads of possibility. If they were keeping him alive, it was obvious that they wanted something from him, and Nick didn’t doubt it would prove to be for an unpleasant purpose. He might find an opportunity to escape, but only after they’d dropped anchor at whatever secret port the Blackwolf called home. Such a feat would not be easy; they had sufficient interest in Nick to keep him locked and chained by himself below deck, so he doubted there would be many moments when he was left unguarded. Also, he would be pitting himself against Silas’ crew, a veritable army, easily hundreds strong.

A desperate challenge. But maybe not impossible. He would have to conserve all his guile, wait for a single opportunity, and take it when it came.

When the cutter had halted before the island, and after Nick realised that it was enemies, not allies, who had found him on that rock, he had dived from its peak and tried to recover his sword, so that he could run himself through with it and avoid capture. But the pirates had leaped out of the ship and seized him before he could -- had wrenched his arms behind his back, bound him with hempen cord, and thrown him into their boat. Then they had discovered Felix, shaking and near-dead, and likewise hauled him aboard, along with their personal effects.

It had been some days since then, and in that time Nick had been wrestling with the transition from accepting death to a fervent desire to go on living. Perhaps it was merely his shock at brushing so close with the end, but he knew better. Whenever he shut his eyes he saw Judith’s face -- saw her eyes, bright as fresh-blooming violets.

He had to escape and return to her. Somehow.

A deep noise suddenly echoed through his cell from outside -- a bass-throated hornblast, low and moaning, like the chilling wail of some unavenged ghost. At the same moment, a key scraped in the lock, and Nick’s cell door swung open. The same ginger-and-grey wolf from the cutter -- Nick had heard him called Vilka -- entered, flanked by two others who scowled darkly at him. Vilka, by contrast, was positively beaming, flashing a grin of yellowing fangs.

“We’ve arrived,” he said with a strong Bersesian burr. “I think you would appreciate some fresh air, yes? And the captain would like a word.”

Nick was brought to the weather deck, his arms bound behind his back once more. The open air was appallingly frigid, so that even Nick, usually impervious to winter’s torments, felt the breeze cut his skin through his fur, and his hackles raised up of their own accord. There were fat white snowflakes tumbling in the air.

He was led to the forecastle, where he could see the bleak, ashen coastline they had come to. As they drew closer, Nick became the first outsider in some time to lay eyes on the _Predator’s_ lair. It was an old fortress, built on a granite outcrop that jutted into the black Bersesian sea. There was a single prominent redoubt, several stories tall and five-sided to turn away incoming cannon fire. There were slender embrasures set in the tower’s crown from which cannon bores leered, and flagpoles protruded from the redoubt’s walls, although the heraldry that had hung from them had been pummelled to threads by the relentless wind long ago. There were walls leading away from the redoubt to the parapets, carpeted with clinging ivy and crowded by the crooked silhouettes of dagger-shaped pines -- the wilderness coming to reclaim its lost territory. And there, rising out of the driving coastal waves, Nick could see the vaulting arch of a portcullis, sealed shut by a heavy and salt-stained iron gate.

The horn bellowed again, and Nick saw the gate shudder and begin to rise, revealing a black cove behind in which, he figured, the _Predator_ intended to dock.

Suddenly, Nick heard a commotion behind him, and he turned to see a troupe of pirates emerge onto the forecastle. Leading them was a stocky, bullnecked wolf with lank, grey fur and a ragged ear, who went and rested himself by the portside gunwale, took out a knife and began to whittle a lump of basswood. He caught Nick’s gaze and returned a look of insolent hatred. But Nick ignored him when he saw Felix led up shortly after.

Nick bit his tongue in surprise; he had hardly expected the panther to survive, let alone to see him upright and waking, although his posture was slouched and his legs were trembling badly. He wore no shirt, and the scar at his chest -- a memento from the occasion he had gambled against death -- was prominent. His right arm, though still discoloured and horribly swollen, particularly below the elbow, was covered with some sort of poultice and smeared with ointment. Again, Nick wondered at the care their captors were taking to ensure their survival, if not strictly their comfort.

Nick began to devise a way that he might secretly consort with Felix. Vilka, however, saw the gears turning in his head and laughed.

“Go on. Go to him,” he said.

Nick turned to the wolf, staring uncomprehendingly.

“To your friend. What harm can it do?”

At this, the stout wolf, carving his wood, looked even more sour than he had before.

“What’s this bitch’s business you’re playing at?” he snarled. “They are prisoners, not dolls.”

“Don’t be so vile, Kurt,” Vilka replied. “There is nothing more treasurable than a reunion among comrades.”

“Spare me. Where is the captain?”

“You know where he is.”

Kurt’s eyes rolled, his lip curling. “Him and his bloody theatrics.”

“Hmm. You be careful, friend of mine,” Vilka said with a smile. “That tone is going to get you into trouble one day.”

“I’m not your friend.”

As the wolves spoke, Nick scampered across the deck to Felix. The pair of wolves who had escorted him to the deck had become bored, and both wandered off to see to other business, leaving Felix awkwardly slouched against the rails for support. Nick gave the panther a look over, noticing for the first time his green eyes, coloured to match Nick’s own. Up close, any appearance of Felix undergoing a recovery was swiftly decimated. The bloated flesh of his arm was badly mottled, all red and black and some sickly cream-colour, and even the pungent reek of whatever unguent had been applied could not cover the stink of infection. A thick strand of pus from a ruptured blister ran down his arm, dripping from his clawtip.

“Are you alive?” Nick asked.

Felix stared at him, his eyes glassy with pain, his breath shallow and rapid. “Don’t say anything,” he replied weakly.

“I know,” said Nick. “This is something of a situation we’ve landed in…”

“No,” Felix hissed. “Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything about Hopps.”

Despite Felix’s much reduced state, Nick’s temper flared.

“Do you think I’d turn traitor to save my own hide?” Nick growled, and then immediately bit back his words; the creature before him was clinging to life and sanity by a mere thread. “I won’t betray her,” Nick promised quietly. “I swear it. And if you’re going to do the same, we can’t stay here. We’re going to need a plan…”

Vilka suddenly appeared beside Nick and draped his arm around the fox’s shoulder.

“Well, are you reacquainted now, you brothers-in-arms?” he asked. “You know, the bonds that link those mammals whose trade is war are truly unshakable, are they not?”

Nick cringed and wormed his way out of the wolf’s embrace. Vilka simply shrugged and regarded Felix, who stared at him with furrowed, baleful eyes.

“That looks nasty,” Vilka said, nodding at Felix’s hideous burns. “My sincere apologies. I’m presuming it was my friend here who inflicted these terrible injuries.” He stepped towards the triple-cannon, perched there on the _Predator’s_ foredeck like a slumbering demon.

Now up close, Nick could see its every detail, such as the running tracks that the cannons travelled forwards and backwards on. In amidst the frame was an ingenous assortment of pullies and rope, designed to arrest the recoil of the twelve-pound guns.

Beside the machine he also spotted a box-shaped furnace in which the rounds were heated. It was styled all over with scenes of demonic torment: leering horned heads; great seas of hellfire; wretches in all manner of supplication being consumed, agony etched deeply in their faces. A more functional and less ornate trapdoor with long, interlocking teeth rested over the top of the furnace, a latter addition presumably designed to keep the fuel from spilling out in a hard turn or in rough seas.

Vilka rapped his paw on the cannon. “The Cerberus is a terrible and voracious beast. It can’t help but to devour all that lies in its path. This you would know if you had heard the old myths; Cerberus, the three-headed hound, keeps watch at the gates of the Underworld, and any damned soul who tries to flee will incur his wrath, for his breathe is a torrent of fire that can melt steel, and his fangs are as long as greatswords. A lovely story, yes?”

Felix spat, glaring at the wolf. “You’ve built a weapon, and you use it to burn innocents to death. You’re nothing but common brutes; stop pretending you’re some learned band of warrior-scholars.”

“Ah, no. You were not listening,” said Vilka, waving a raised finger. “You should; you might learn something from the tale. The Cerberus visits its vengeance on the damned only. Not the innocent. The damned, who try to escape. You see what you can learn from this?”

“Sure,” said Nick to Felix, pointing at Vilka. “I’ve learned not to get this one speaking, or he’ll never shut his Saints-damned mouth.”

Vilka laughed, turning back to the fox. “I should cut out your tongue for that, but you are right. I do so love the music of my own voice. And here I am, rudely hogging the centre-stage, when there is another who is waiting so patiently to speak…”

A dark shape that had been resting unseen against the Cerberus suddenly separated from it and strode slowly towards them. Even under the feeble winter sunlight, Silas Rourke had the look of a shadow, a creature whom the light was fearful to touch. As he approached, he offered a short bow and doffed an imaginary hat, his braids chiming and he bent forward. Vilka applauded. Kurt, still stripping curls of wood from his carving, snorted. Nick could only stare.

So, this was the Blackwolf. The bloody marauder. The terror of the Latara, who left naught but a trail of charred and mutilated dead in his wake. Nick wished that Silas did not measure right against the legends told of him, but the wolf standing here had the look of one with both the temperament and ability to massacre without restraint. He was taller than Nick by a clear foot, and all of him hard, sinewy muscle. And those eyes -- bright as molten metal, and yet somehow utterly cold and unfeeling. Eyes that craved broken flesh and shed blood.

Nick may have been a pirate once -- some time ago, long enough to seem another life entire. But this was where the similarities between him and Silas ended. Even within their lawless class, there were plenty who looked with undisguised revulsion upon those who slaughtered for the sheer ecstasy of it, for primitive bloodlust. And amongst such butchers, the Blackwolf was champion without dispute.

Silas came to a halt before Nick and looked him up and down. “Nicholas Wilde. The Redcoat. Welcome aboard my humble ship. The pleasure is all mine.”

Nick was glad the Blackwolf did not offer a paw; the thought of touching him made bile creep up in his throat. Instead, Silas turned his attention to Felix.

“And…a newly promoted captain of the Zoohaven Royal Navy. Which would make you Felix Growlmont. Again, delighted to be in your company. My sympathies regarding the plight of the _Wavebreak_ \-- I heard it was wrecked beyond recovery.”

Silas’ mockery brought Felix’s fangs out, and Nick intervened to draw the attention back to himself. “If you’re hoping to astound with the range of your information, then you’ve failed. You would have known Felix to be a captain from the bars on his uniform. And the fact you know the name of a famous outlaw is even less impressive.”

Silas turned his gaze back to Nick, who suddenly recognised something besides brute sadism lurking in those yellow eyes -- delight. Pure and complete delight that Nick was in his captivity. While he managed to hold his brave expression, a cold flood of dread rolled down Nick’s spine.

“Famous outlaw, indeed,” replied Silas. “Who appears to be sailing under the Zoohaven colours at present. Unless there’s some other explanation as to how you were discovered stranded alongside a Zoohaven officer, shivering on a rock in the middle of the sea.”

“It’s my business alone what rocks I choose to shiver on,” Nick said. “And who I shiver with.”

Silas raised a paw, offering a sweeping gesture towards the _Predator’s_ deck. “So then; how does it feel to be back aboard a pirate ship?” he asked.

“I didn’t exactly enjoy being chained in your hold,” Nick snarked. “And now I’m in the freezing cold of some place long abandoned by the world to serve as the den for a pack of cowardly wolves.”

Silas grinned. The delight in his eyes went nowhere. “You found your accommodation thus far…insufficient,” he said slowly. “Well. We’ll have to do something about that.”

They had reached the yawning archway, and the ship sailed straight in, like a morsel into the open mouth of some deep-sea leviathan. Once they passed through, the portcullis rattled back down on its gatetracks, the chains of the counterweights clanking loudly until the gate spikes sunk into the water, and the whole thing came to a rest, sealing them off from the world outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much for a process that speeds things up. This was the first stretch of time where my professional life really put nails in the coffin of my free time, and I have to say, it was really unpleasant. I enjoy writing, but when you suddenly find you have no time to do it, it becomes this intolerable itch that you have to scratch. To the point where I was furtively doing sketches and writing bits of paragraphs on scraps of paper in between meetings and over hastily scoffed lunches. But it was worth it in the end.
> 
> I'm really excited by how much speculation people are pitching at this work, wondering why the pair have been abducted and what's going to happen next. I've dropped a couple of sneaky hints in this section, and the whole backstory will unfold over the next few chapters.
> 
> Remember guys, I burn comments and kudos for fuel. Keep my boiler stoked.


	9. But Two Chances

The _Predator_ passed into the darkness of the cove, where only a thin spread of blunted sunlight fell through the grates of the portcullis gate.

A great commotion boiled up onto the deck as the crew seethed up from below and clambered into the rigging, furling sails that were no longer needed. Nick had wondered how a ship could move in such windless seclusion, and his question was answered when he spotted a winchwheel on one side of the cavern’s entrance, spun by an enormous crank handle that looked to be a mission for six pairs of strong arms to turn. On the opposite side there was a large iron hook, hanging from the wall by a peg and tied to a length of thick rope that snaked into the darkness before them. A gang of wolves arrived at the bow and hoisted the hook down with a long gaff, latching it through a metal hoop hanging just below the bowsprit. Moments later, the sister winch somewhere in the shadowed distance began to turn, and the line drew taut, dragging the _Predator_ forward along the glass-flat water.

Soon the ship was drawn away from meagre sun, and everything faded into subterranean darkness. In this shadow-world, all that Nick could see were hundreds of glinting wolf eyes, bobbing and shifting like a horde of will-o-wisps. Nick also noticed that Silas’ wouldn’t let his eyes stray from the fox; the sparking points that marked the wolf’s gaze held him intently, unwilling to look elsewhere.

Then, as if upon a rehearsed signal, a line of giant braziers suddenly took light, filling the underground cavern they had sailed into with a soft orange glow. Said cavern was vast in circumference, easily several hundred yards in diameter, and its vaulting ceiling reached so high that the tip of the _Predator’s_ main mast was in no danger of touching it.

This must, in some dimly recalled age, have served as anchorage for a squadron of Bersesian naval ships, and no doubt there was space for a sizeable garrison in the fortress above. Nick could picture them -- proud, imposing frigates, riding out of the keep into the churning ocean, their black-and-white flags roaring in the terrific gale, off to hammer fear into the hearts of Bersei’s enemies.

It had all gone to carrion long ago, rotted remains for these scavenges to flock to.

The towline drew the ship steadily to a halt alongside a stone wharf, where a crew, dozens strong, waited to catch the mooring lines thrown to them, wrapping them securely around the dock posts. A number of sturdy boarded gangplanks were lowered into place, and the pirates aboard began to ferry the loot from their latest spate of raids -- in chests, in sacks, in stolen strongboxes -- onto the dock, howling and laughing as they did.

Silas turned to Nick and Felix. “Well, Redcoat; Captain. Are you ready to see where the tides of fate have carried you?”

Nick sneered, unbothered with hiding his disdain for the pirate captain. He went to Felix and, since no other cared to offer any assistance, loaned his shoulder to bear the panther’s weight. Felix accepted with a grimace, leaning his arm on the fox. Then the two of them followed the Blackwolf off the ship.

Once they disembarked, Nick suddenly caught sight the most remarkable thing; tucked away behind the recesses of the dock’s walls, sparking in the amber firelight, were enormous mounds of treasure. They were heaped up in great, slouching piles: silverware, gemstones, jewellery, statues, bullion, gilded armour, ornamental swords. And coins. Coins beyond counting. Maura and arga. Oddly-shaped currencies from foreign shores. Money from innumerable mints, all snatched from thousands of looted chests and safes and from the pockets and purses of the dead.

 _How fitting_ , Nick thought _, that a ship many envision as a fire-breathing dragon squats on a great horde of gold._

And as he watched the wolves hurl their fresh plunder upon this ever-growing accumulation, he couldn’t help but to wonder what it all meant.

Why, if Silas was so fantastically rich, so indescribably wealthy -- if he could buy a nation, or buy an army to seize one for him -- why was he endlessly scouring the ocean for a few more pawfuls of pilfer to toss on this mounting heap? What was he hoping to achieve? Was all this goldlust a puzzle piece in some grand plan, or just the bloodstained indulgence of a damaged mind?

“Where is my shipwright?” Silas called as he stepped onto the wharf, his voice echoing in the vaulting dome of the cave. “Where is that trull? I’ve a missing mast that needs seeing to. And someone drag that bloated whore Scaleton down here, too. There’s a half-dead panther for him to wait upon.”

From out of the jostling crowd of wolves came the last thing Nick would have expected to see here; a pangolin, slightly shorter than him and rather swollen about the waist, dressed in a threadbare black suit and vest that appeared never to have been cleaned. He waddled into their midst and dropped a canvas bag full of medical equipment on the floor by his side.

“I’m here,” said Scaleton wearily. “Where is the patient?” Felix was brought forward, and when he saw the severity of the panther’s injuries he sucked in a breath through his snout. “Bring those steps here,” Scaleton said, and a wolf came forwarded with a slated box that the pangolin could use to reach Felix’s height. He clambered to the top of them, and then reached into his canvas bag, coming up with a bottle of some tincture which he splashed on his claws. Then he took Felix’s arm gently in his claws and looked it over.

“When did this occur?” he asked.

“Six days ago,” Nick answered.

Scaleton turned to face the fox, seeming to notice him for the first time and giving him a moment of his curiosity. Then he turned back to his task.

“As I would have guessed,” Scaleton muttered. “Whoever saw to him in the intervening time did well -- to clean the wound, and to apply the ointment and dressing.”

Vilka, standing nearby, gave a sweeping bow. “Why, thank you, doctor,” he laughed. “I always knew I had the makings of a mammal of medicine.”

“However,” Scaleton continued, “it hasn’t been enough. The burn is very deep -- worse below the elbow, but bad all over. Sepsis has already set in.” The physician gave the arm a slight squeeze, and a thick stream of pus expelled itself and drippled onto the stone floor. Felix did well not to howl in pain.

“I will do what I can,” Scaleton said, turning on his step to face Silas and wiping his claws on the corner of his coat. “But if you want promises, I can give you none. These are the worst burns I’ve seen in a long time. He should, by rights, be dead already.”

Silas leaned forward, his glinting canines nearly touching Scaleton’s face. He was minute by comparison; Silas could tear the pangolin’s head off with a mere snap of his jaws if he wished it.

“What if I tell you that I want this panther to survive?” he asked, low and menacing. “If I tell you that he is now in your adept care, and that I hold his recovery as a matter entirely of your responsibility?”

Scaleton looked at Silas with tired, watery eyes. He had the look of one who still feared death, yet had suffered its warning so often that its threat alone was a much-blunted edge.

“Intimidation is no magic to turn lead into gold,” he sighed. “The facts are the facts. As I said, I will do all I can.”

Silas grinned; he seemed to find Scaleton’s manner amusing. “Then you had best move quickly, doctor. Your time, and his, are running thin.”

Scaleton, his manner somehow both stoic and defeated at once, collected his bag, dismounted the stairs, and motioned to two nearby wolves.

“I’ll need help,” he said. “Take him to the infirmary. We’ll need to operate immediately.” The wolves set to the task without interest, doing as they were told only on Silas’ orders. Felix was led away, and Scaleton gave Nick one final look before he followed.

Silas turned his full attention to the fox, studying him through those golden eyes. He peered at Nick as though he were a scientific curiosity, a specimen -- no, worse; as if he were some crowning jewel atop the pirate’s mountain of treasure.

“As you said,” Silas began, “there was no comfort to be found in my ship’s unwarmed hold, and so you must be tired. I believe we can find you boarding that suits your station; after all, foxes are only accustomed to the very best, are they not?” He turned and addressed Vilka. “Put Wilde up in the officer’s quarters. If memory attends me correctly, that room ought to be of suitable lavishness.”

But before Vilka could so much as speak, Kurt barged in upon the gathering, his muzzle wrinkled with revulsion. “Silas!” he spat, furiously waving his paws as if upon an act sacrilegious; a transgression, obvious and abhorrent. “What in Luna’s name do you think you’re doing?! They’re fucking prisoners, and you’re acting like some pup with wooden dolls!”

The commotion of unloading the _Predator_ halted immediately, and all attention fell on the scene unfolding, Nick’s included. He noticed that the crowd of wolves began to draw back slowly.

Silas regarded Kurt quietly. Still smiling. “They are mine,” he said. “I do with them as I please.”

“You think this one poses no danger?” Kurt growled, levelling a finger at Nick. “You’re playing with him. Just as you are with that bitch Hopps. We should have smashed and burned her ship to nothing and then wrung her scrawny neck! Or what, Silas? Are you losing your spine? Growing a soft spot for worthless prey”

“Do you think you could do better?”

Kurt growled. Then he unsheathed his sword.

There was scarcely a sound that followed -- not a breath of wind, nor the lap of a wave, nor so much as a word from the audience of wolves watching. The silence of a deep, collective held breath. The only noise was the faint ring of Kurt’s falchion, its blade aquiver on leaving its scabbard.

A pause took hold. It endured.

When Silas spoke, his voice was flat and bled of emotion. If a statue or gargoyle were granted by some bewitchment the gift of voice, it would have spoken just as he did.

“By our code,” he said, “to which each of us without exception is bound, only the strongest, the most savage, he who is most ready to spill blood, may stand at the _Predator’s_ helm. This is determined by the contest of single combat; slay the captain, and you may take his place. The conditions of failure? Should I best you, I will take an eye from you. Thus, a claimant has but two chances to undo me.” Silas held up two of his fingers for all to see. He fixed his sallow glare on Kurt, and very slowly lowered one, that a single finger remained raised. “All this, you knew before you drew your sword against me. Now, the wheels of fate are in motion. And they do not turn in reverse.”

Then he reached down, seized the handle of his sabre, and drew it.

Nick could not imagine its equal; he’d believe it was an artefact of another world entirely, born out of some demon’s smoking forge on the ash-blighted plains of the Underworld. Whatever metal its hilt was wrought from was onyx black, and the fires that lit the cave swam on the blade’s mirror-perfect flat. It bore an inscription, much the same as Nick’s surrendered sword did. _Nihilo._

Nick could sense no trace of fear in Kurt; just ugly, rebarbative hatred. It was in the corded veins and dancing tendon in his taut arms and neck. He stank of it.

Suddenly, Kurt rushed forward with a mighty roar, swinging his blade overhead, aiming it directly at Silas’ nose. Kurt had the physique of a barbarian -- squat, brutish, muscular -- and he swung his sword as a savage would, with less art than chilling strength. Even a skilled duellist would struggle with such feral potency.

Silas smirked, stepping backward and aside, so that Kurt’s blow missed and struck the ground, raising sparks off the stonework. Undeterred, Kurt pushed forward, levelling three lethal sideswipes at his enemy, any of which had enough force to split a mammal into halves and all of which Silas parried without difficulty; he looked bored as he did, like an instructor of swordcraft drilling a green recruit. The fourth swipe Silas also turned aside, sweeping his foot into the charging Kurt, stealing his balance from under him. Kurt stumbled forward and bowled into the spectators, who yelped and scrambled to flee.

“Is this all you are capable of?” Silas asked as Kurt thrashed to untangle himself from the wolves he’d fallen on. “If so, you have made a grave error of judgement. You should not have spoken as you did. You should have been content as my pet.”

At that last insult, Kurt stared at Silas, his eyes filling with blind rage. “What did you just call me?”

“A pet. A lapdog. This is what you are. Not a captain.”

Kurt unleashed another echoing roar, his fury volcanic. He brought up his sword and stormed forward --

Silas covered the distance between Kurt and himself with such speed that Nick barely believed it, even as he watched it happen. At the end of that swift lunge, Silas angled a swipe at Kurt’s throat that he only just deflected. Then a second. A third. Soon Kurt was forced backward, retreating under a flurry of murderous blows. The wolves that formed the rim of the arena moved away swiftly, fearful that a misaimed slash might catch them in the neck.

To his credit, Kurt put his backfoot down squarely and regained his forward momentum, and soon the pair were consumed in an exchange of thrusts, parries and ripostes that turned the air around them into a silver blur. The snarl of their blades meeting resonated in the confines of the cove, amplified to a terrific cacophony, as though it were two great armies meeting sword-to-sword rather than just two furious combatants, dancing madly on the edge of mortality.

The Blackwolf’s advantages, however, began to show. Kurt may well have been stronger, but Silas’ step was quicker, his arms longer, and he used his broad reach to corral his opponent, cutting off any escape, pushing him further and further back until, finally, Kurt was forced to lunge at Silas, grunting with exertion, aiming to plunge the tip of his falchion into Silas’ stomach.

Silas knew it was coming. A response not just predicted, but engineered.

He caught Kurt’s blade against his own, let it travel to the guard, and then brought his arm around in a vicious pinwheel that snatched the sword from Kurt’s grasping paw. It spun through the air, clattered across the stones and came to a rest with terrible finality.

There were no cries or jeers from the crowd; just an exhalation, a pawful of coins traded between those who had wagered on the outcome, and then rapt attention at the inevitable consequence coming. Nick couldn’t tear his gaze away.

Kurt was slumped forward, his empty paws on the ground to bear his weight, his chest heaving with each deep breath. A short distance away, Silas smoothed his ruffled mane of fur, and then held the tip of _Nihilo_ up to the light, studying its impossibly sharp tip.

“Stand up Kurt, my pitiful pet,” he crooned. “I want my prize. I want your eye. And I always get what is owed to me…”

He began to walk forward, but Kurt held up a paw to stop him. “Wait!” he huffed. “Wait. Hold on a moment.”

Silas paused, regarding his beaten foe.

Then, Kurt reached to his belt, drew his dagger, and stood tall and proud.

“You’ll get your prize,” he snarled. “You’ll get it. But you won’t take it from me. I’ll give it to you myself.”

He raised the dagger and put the tip to the soft jelly of his eye. Then, with a grimace, he slid the dagger in. Immediately a thin stream blood welled and spilled from the wound, running down his cheek like sanguine tears. Then, hissing and growling through his clenched jaw, strands of spittle flicking off his grit teeth, he gave the dagger a twist and scooped the eye from its socket, leaving an empty red cavity behind. The eye rolled away and landed on the floor with a soft plop, and Kurt threw the dagger imperiously at Silas’ feet.

Silas simply sheathed his sword and smiled, the debt paid, the tribute rendered.

“You can afford to challenge me but once more,” Silas said. “Once more. After that, it will be a bowl and a beggar’s cane for you.”

Kurt marched over to his fallen sword, trailing drops of blood as he went. He picked the weapon up, sheathed it, and then stared at Silas through his remaining eye.

“Not if I win,” he growled.

Then he stalked away, pushing wolves out of his path, off to brood over his defeat and to lick his wounds in the darkness. The silence of the enthralled arena came to an end, and the chaotic bustle of pirates offloading their loot recommenced, as if no such grotesquery had occurred.

Nick stared at the pools of scattered blood left behind in the duel’s wake. He did not have long, however, to ruminate on the thoughtlessness of the violence he had just witnessed; unencumbered by other distractions, Silas turned his attention back to the fox.

“As I was saying,” he continued. “The officer’s quarters. I’m sure you will find them appropriate. Vilka, if you would escort our guest.”

Nick could not have been happier to exit the Blackwolf’s company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little ahead of schedule; call it a reward for the deficit during the last few weeks.
> 
> The eye is, of course, a fascinating bit of our anatomy, and it was nice to reacquaint myself with the details of its composition, things half-recalled from biology years ago. Before sitting down to write this chapter, I'm sure I would have said that the eye isn't a balloon filled with blood; for one thing, it would make light difficult to pass through it. But in the first draft I had a red torrent come flying out when Kurt took the knife to himself. (Incidentally, apologies if you're the squeamish sort and that moment had you writhing -- I don't seem to have much in the way of triggers for that sort of unpleasantness. I even google image searched 'burned dogs' to try and get Felix's injuries right. Somehow, this doesn't seem something to be proud of...) But more importantly, the stakes have been set; if you're going to kill the Blackwolf, you had better get it right the first time; the price of failure is steep, and there are no third tries...
> 
> Thanks for reading! Drop a kudos in my appreciation fund if you enjoyed. And don't forget to call someone you dislike a 'trull' at some point.


	10. So Emotional

Nick was escorted -- not at swordpoint, but with the threat of a drawn blade clear and present should he attempt an escape -- into the cold bowels of the fortress, before being marched up several flights of stairs and finally coming to a halt before a sturdy oak door. While two guards looked on, Vilka produced a large iron ring hung with dozens of keys. He found the appropriate one, unlocked the door, and pushed it open, its ungreased hinges shrieking.

A treacle-thick darkness lay before them; either they were still deep underground, or the previous occupant of this room had possessed a paralysing phobia of fresh air and light, and had boarded over every window.

A rough shove in the small of Nick’s back pushed him forward, and with a frown he stepped into the impenetrable shadows. Nick was such a mammal luckily blessed with excellent night-sight, but the blackness in here was a challenge beyond him; he needed at least a dribble of light to make a picture of things in the dark, and except for a few weak rays from the hallway lamps, this room was utterly vacant of such.

Perhaps wolves had keener eyes than foxes, for Vilka brushed past Nick and became just a collection of sounds in the dark, the clank and scrape of objects being touched, heard but unseen. Then there was a dancing amber spark struck from a match, which caught the wick of a candle and filled the space with soft flickering light.

The room revealed was at once grandly appointed and in a state of remarkable decrepitude. Dust was thick on every surface, lying like a sheet of grey snow on the flagstones and carpet, so deep that Vilka had left clear tracks in it. There was a grand marble fireplace at the end of the room, adjacent a second wooden door that presumably lead to the bedchambers. There was furniture of ornate artisanship, all of which was worm-bored and filthy with mould., and a sofa, once red damask and gold brocade, now all indistinct grey. Oil paintings that and faded and cracked. Paper doilies that would crumble to powder at a touch.

There were windows, but they had been bricked over long ago. The spaces were still hung with drapes, which had gathered so much dust, along with thick braids of greasy cobwebs, that they looked more like great loops of intestine yanked from the belly of some twisted nightmare beast.

Accommodation suiting his station. What did he expect?

Vilka lit three tall, fat tapers on the fireplace mantlepiece, and then turned to give Nick a riling smirk. “Do you find the officer’s quarters sufficient?” he asked.

“What happens if I say no?”

“We leave and lock the door.”

“Then it’ll do just fine.”

Still smirking, Vilka motioned for the two guards to leave, and was halfway out the door himself when Nick called, “Hey! What about my personal effects?”

Vilka paused in the doorway and shook his head. “You do not get your sword and pistols back so easily, trickster,” he said.

“My longcoat, though. A fox could get awfully cold of a night in here.”

“A fox probably will,” Vilka replied. Then he shut the door.

Nick sighed. He’d never had much interest in revenge; grudges were uncommon to one who usually had the upper paw. But of late he’d run into a glut of lowlifes who deserved to be on a list of mammals worth killing, and if he did decide to keep such a record, Vilka’s name might just be somewhere near the top.

Nick checked the door and was unsurprised to find it firmly locked. Then he walked along the walls of the room, tracing the sealed windows with his paw. The masonry was recent. He went to the flue of the fireplace and peered upwards into the chimney. A solid iron grate has been set into it, inscrutable blackness beyond.

For a while Nick stood there in the wan candlelight. He looked serene, semi-detached, like someone who’d misplaced something of minor importance and was trying to piece together its likely location. His mind, however, was a seethe of incoordinate thoughts and terrors. It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t slept well in days.

He opened the chamber door and found a wide four-poster in the centre of the room. The sheets were musty and frayed, like the unwound bandages of the mummified dead. Nick checked around the room, rifling through the wardrobe drawers until he came up with some foetid but intact blankets. He hurled these onto the bed and then, still clothed, curled up in a ball under them, his tailtip across his muzzle and ears still attuned to the world without.

 _Don’t dream,_ he begged himself. _Not of him. Not of her._

He was asleep before his tail even settled.

 

 

Nick woke with no sense of how much time had passed. He climbed out of the bed and returned to the main room, where he saw the thick tapers had melted down below a half of their original length. It was no certainty, but he’d bet the better portion of a whole day had passed.

He got up and began to look for ways to amuse himself, and started with destroying a probably priceless table, lifting away its polished black-glass top and then smashing off its cherrywood legs. Once he had clawed and broken it all to pieces, he piled it in the ashes of the long-dormant fireplace, along with some crumbling paper and shredded fabric as tinder. He took a candle to this, and with some effort and muttered cursing, he eventually managed a roaring fire which filled the room with warmth and light.

He then began to explore his quarters thoroughly, idly sizing up which invaluable antique he might ruin next, once the table had burned down to coals. In a tall chifforobe he found some moth-eaten military tunics in the hanging space and, in the draws besides, a small black box. He prised it open and found, to his delight, an elegant meerschaum pipe and a drawstring bag full of tobacco, nestled in the baize lining.

“How wonderful,” he said to himself, packing the pipe and then walking to the mantlepiece to light it off the candleflame. Then he went to the sofa, brushed as much of the entrenched dust away as he could manage, took a seat, and drew on his pipe.

Immediately his face screwed up. The tobacco was completely stale. It was like burning dry dung in a campfire and then licking the ashes.

“Saints,” he coughed, holding the pipe up for narrow-eyed scrutiny, as if hoping to make it feel ashamed. “You’re about the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. And that puts you up against some robust competition.”

But he smoked it anyway, raising a cloud of earthy fumes. He blew a smoke ring, watching it spin like a tiny particulate ballerina. And he thought.

It was plain, even to his mean intelligence, that Silas had plucked him and Felix from their predicament in order to syphon information about Judith out of them. His behaviour was simply inexplicable by any other account. As for this perplexing charade of faux hospitality, he could not be certain. He’d been prepared for, if not overjoyed at, the prospect of being dragged to a dungeon to have his fangs pulled and his tail stretched while brutal inquisitors demanded he answer their questions. Evidently, Silas preferred an unorthodox approach. But he was certain the questions were coming, and soon. And he was equally certain he wouldn’t give up what they wanted.

This left Nick with a single course to follow. Somehow, before they broke him or murdered him, he had to kill Silas.

That was not going to be easy. He had seen the Blackwolf fight up-close now, and the rumours and stories of his prowess weren’t exaggerations. Silas was a lethal warrior. An apex predator who combined martial prowess with brute hostility. A monster who spread death like a plague. And Nick didn’t even have a sword to raise against him.

He could only wait for some favourable moment, and even if such presented itself he had no idea if he could overpower the wolf and take his life.

Nick smiled, amused by the desperation of his situation, and began to wonder at the course of events that had lead him here. He had heard mammals pontificate, usually while slurring drunk, about the inescapable nature of fate, and he’d only thought of it as foolishness. But it was impossible to argue that all the events, from the moment of his birth to now, had fallen into place just so. Maybe, regardless of what he might have changed, this eventuality was inevitable. Maybe, even if he had known his father, whatever labourer or scoundrel he had been, whatever dashing gentlemammal embarrassed by an illegitimate whelp, he would still have found himself at this point.

All he knew for sure was that Judith had been right; there was no relief to be found looking into the past for a place to lay the blame of the present’s bitterness. Circumstance be damned. He’d once said that for a fox to follow the rules meant to follow a single barren corridor, or to lie down and die. But there was a third option; take a hammer to the walls. Smash an escape through them. It was the path he would take now.

Judith’s smiling face appeared in his mind, and he wondered what she was doing right now: righting the devastations inflicted upon her cause; devising some new strategy for the next battle; instilling confidence and conviction in her crew. He wished that, by some wizardry, he could send to her a sense, a tingle, a mere intuition, that he was still alive, but he swiftly recanted the fantasy. She would recover from the grief in time. And while he was alive yet, he knew it was not to last.

A noise at the door, the rasp of a key turning in a lock, made his ear flick; of course, no one here would be inclined to knock first. The door swung open, and a wolf with the sourest countenance he’d ever seen presented himself; a mammal ordered to empty overflowing latrines with his bare paws would wear a brighter expression.  

 _At least,_ Nick thought with a grin, _my imprisonment is an inconvenience to someone other than myself._

“The captain says you’re to join him for dinner,” the wolf growled, his thick accent making him sound positively hostile. He lifted a garment on a wooden hanger -- a silk doublet in deep scarlet with silver trim -- and it dawned on Nick that Silas intended he wear it. He laughed.

“What, is he trying to seduce me? Why does it trouble the Blackwolf how I’m dressed?”

“I don’t know, nor care,” the wolf said. “Put it on. We don’t keep him waiting.”

“Well, hell. If my current ensemble is insufficient, then he’ll be dining alone tonight, I suppose,” Nick said, shaking his head.

“He won’t be pleased,” warned the wolf, who, clearly disinterested in further argument, tossed the garments into the dust in a crumpled heap and beckoned for Nick to follow.

Here it was, then. The opportune moment. Sitting across a table from his foe, he might be able to palm a knife and hide it in the loose fabric of his shirtsleeve. He hadn’t the faintest idea of why Silas would want to sit down and dine with him -- Nick assumed this was all some operatic prelude to his torture -- but he’d just have to wait until he was within arm’s reach. Then he could lay Silas’ throat open, and wait for the stampede of guards to storm the room and butcher him.

Or hell, maybe they’d make him their new captain.

 _Judith, wherever you are, I’m doing this for you,_ he thought, squaring his shoulders and following his escort out.

 

 

Judith was not expecting a warm welcome, and none was received.

She did not bother with lowering the Zoohaven colours from her ships; attempting to hide their nationality would only be a disservice to their cause in the end. They simply hoisted a long yellow pennant, indicating hospitable intentions, and sailed straight into Tor-Kropa’s harbour.

The island was definitely cast of the same stuff that all these northern places were; cold grey rock, stubborn lichen, and tall, darkly coloured firs dusted with snow. The cold air was biting, and the same persistent overcast they had sailed under from their homeport was here, reducing the sun’s light to beggary. But there were also signs of prosperity. The merchants who oversaw the island’s commerce had built sumptuous estates on the mountainsides, overlooking the vast sweep of the sea. Had sponsored ornate-spired churches and elegant bell towers. Had built a thriving esplanade, where traders did stone-faced business in bazaars and under pavilions of every colour.

This was a place where money ruled.

As soon as the  _Implacable_  was moored to an open dock and Judith had walked down the gangway with a small retinue, a blustering hog with a huge gut strode forward to intercept her. He had a bitter face that seemed to have no acquaintance with the concept of a smile, and wore a welter of gold chains and a mauve doublet that struggled against his paunch. A cohort of armed and uniformed guards was at his back, their faces obscured under cork-leather helms.

“Greetings,” Judith said, aiming for civility. “Do I have the pleasure of addressing the dockmaster?”

“What, in the name of whatever shit-breath god you choose to worship, is the Zoohaven navy doing in my harbour?” the hog demanded. He was staring straight past her to where the  _Implacable_ and  _Seastorm_ were tethered at the docks.

“I am commodore Judith Hopps,” Judith tried. She didn’t extend a paw; she was certain it would be refused, in any case. “This is captain Beck Harrington, and first lieutenant Harley Ablefang. We’ve sailed far and suffered much, and we’re in need of somewhere safe to resupply and conduct repairs.”

“So sail to a Zoohaven port,” the hog spat. “This is no safe port for your kind.”

Judith kept her smile, though it was chiselled into the taut muscle of her face. “Last I checked, Zoohaven and Bersei were not countries at war.”

“This is no Berseisian port,” the hog corrected, his face growing sterner still. “The Council governs here; not the Berseisian Duma. And the Council doesn’t want your ships here. Turn and go.”

There was a tense moment, where steely eyes were exchanged on both sides. Surely this wasn’t to end in bloodshed, and yet sailors and guards alike were starting to reach for sword hilts, thumbing the hammers on their muskets.

“Well? Do those oversized ears hear nothing? I must repeat myself? Get-“

“Sir, I’m certain you are doing what you think is just. Or you are doing as you’ve been told. In either case, I need to assure you that we are here under affable conditions, and that Zoohaven does not expect others to foot its bills. You’ll be compensated for our stay.”

The hog paused at the mention of money, his beady eyes staring as his mercenary mind began to calculate and balance.

“If your concern is what two Zoohaven naval ships are doing in the waters off Bersei, let me assure you it is a diplomatic mission,” Judith lied. “We were merely struck by unfortunate storms that rent our flagship’s hull. We pose no cause for alarm.”

The hog shot her a wary squint. “Thirty maura a day. Per ship.”

“Hey now!” Harley said, stepping forward. “That’d be ten times what you ask for a berth, I’d wager…”

“Hush,” Judith hissed, putting a paw on Harley’s chest to slow him. The boar’s eyes remained on her, and she returned the glare unwavering. “Very well.”

“And sixty as a down-payment,” the boar continued.

Judith reached into her coat, counted out the demanded measure -- very nearly all the coin she had taken from the treasury that morning, and enough to dock a ship for a few weeks at any fair harbour -- and dropped them into the boar’s clutching hoof. He raised one specimen to the light and bit it. Finally, he nodded.

“Roll up those bloody blue flags,” the boar rumbled, gesturing to the Zoohaven banners trailing from the masts. “And if any of my guards spots so much as a butter knife in the paws of one ‘o yours, the whole militia will come down on you, hard as hail. Ivan,” he said, turning to one of the guards, near anonymous under his studded muzzle-guard, “make sure there’s a permeant watch on this pier, so these vermin don’t start any trouble.”

“I’m, uh, Graviil, sir Tuskovitch” said the helmed wolf hesitantly. “Ivan is the other wolf. The grey one.”

The boar bristled. “Who cares? Who gives a damn what your name is? From now on, I will call you Shithead. I won’t forget that. Do you prefer that?”

“No, sir…”

“Shithead, make sure there are guards on duty down here, or it’s your hide.”

Judith was about to interject and ask after where they would find the services they required -- the lumber mill, the ironmonger, the grocer- but it seemed the exorbitant sum had bought them nothing more than the warning and the boar’s retreating back, as the dockmaster turned and left with the majority of his escort, leaving behind a few brooding guards who looked no happier than their master had.

“What a bastard,” Harley hissed as they turned away. “He’s only worried about lining his pockets with our gold. Damned if I wouldn’t mind shoving his fat arse off the dock.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Judith said. “He knows we’re in Berseisian waters unannounced, and he knows there’s a risk in letting us stay. We only need time enough to see our damage put right, and then we’ll be gone.”

She stared up at the island’s rising mountainside and wondered if their arrival was already gossip in the halls of the powerful. It was obvious the dockmaster was breeching some covenant, and Judith worried that it had something to do with the methods by which Tor-Kropa stayed safe. How was it not an enticing target for raiders of any stripe, let alone the Blackwolf? Someone in Bersei was profiting from this island, and it seemed likely those profits might be information rather than coin, traded for some measure of protection. They would have to keep their future plans very close to their chest…that is, they would if they had any plans.

“Alright, we’re going to need good lumber, and we definitely need our stores of powder and shot replenished. Harley, organise some envoys and send them out. And get out of your officer’s coat and into something less obvious; I want to remain ignored for as long as possible.”

“Tell them to broker good deals, too,” Beck added, resting a palm on Harley’s elbow. “We don’t want to deplete our finances, and sixty maura a day will take a sizeable bite out of them.”

Judith wondered how Nick would have approached bartering in their position, and she smirked; the cad would probably have known of some shady port, out of any authority’s earshot, or if not, she could imagine him telling the corpulent swine where to stick his sixty gold pieces.

She had spent the days sailing to Tor-Kropa torturing herself over her role in Nick’s fate. In the end the omen had come true, and in ways worse than she could have ever dreaded. But she knew, if nothing else, that there was no bringing him back. And she could imagine what he would say if he could see her, sobbing over his absence. _Saints, you bunnies. So emotional. Stop bawling, you damned softheart. You weren’t crying before I blundered into your life. Why are you crying now?_

The wounds on her heart weren’t healed yet, and the scars would never vanish. But she was healing. She would, after a fashion, be whole again.

She looked up at the grey sky, at the dim halo of the sun beyond the clouds.

 _Wherever you’ve gone, Nick,_ she thought, _I hope you’ve found some peace. I hope you’ve found a place where you belong. And I hope you can see me yet, for you and Felix both will be avenged. I swear it._

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is now the longest thing I've submitted so far, and soon it'll we be the work with the most chapters. I'll state for the record now that I don't want to draw things out, but I really liked this scene with Nick moping around a bit, reflecting and ruminating and so such. Sometimes the reader needs to experience the slow pace in real time -- you can say a year passes, but it takes a bit of skill to make it really feel like it.
> 
> Thanks and kudos are always appreciated!


	11. One and Only

 

The marble archway that led to the dining hall was exquisitely ornate, like the carved entrance to the stage of a renowned theatre. It was richly detailed in a classical style, most notably with an entire menagerie of embossed animals in all manner of heroic postures -- wrestling, duelling, firing longbows. Everywhere the eye travelled, it was rewarded with some unique and delightful feature.

So it was of the props on the stage beyond. Two vast black iron chandeliers cradling a myriad of lit candles commanded the room, casting a warm glow at its centre and shadows at its edges. The light was caught and reflected in an array of trumeau mirrors set into recessions that ran the length of the walls. Each alcove also boasted an alabaster plinth, and upon each of these sat a sculpted bust of some judgemental, self-important dignitary, some lord or marquis from Berseisian antiquity, whose place in history was bought with wealth, not deeds. A long and richly polished table dominated the middle of the room, though currently it was bare save for a brace of unlit candelabra and, of all things, a gilt centrepiece laden with false fruit, all but coloured glass. There was a ceramic pitcher of wine as well; the service of alcohol to honoured guests was a time-worn custom to most.

And there, seated at the head of the table, a goblet of wine in one paw, was the other dramatis personae of this play. The antagonist. The villain.

Silas smiled and ushered Nick in with a beckoning wave, and Nick took the only other chair, a tall fauteuil cushioned with suede, placed at the opposite end of the table.

For a moment, the guards were uncertain whether to stand by the doorway or close to their charge, but Silas caught their eye and said, “Leave us. I will call should I have need of you.” The guards vanished, and a ponderous silence fell as Silas drank deeply from his cup, and Nick looked the wolf over. No weapon on the Blackwolf. None within his own reach, save his own fangs and claws. The lack of cutlery on the table; he had hoped for knives and forks, and was disappointed. The table about ten feet in length -- he felt he could cover such a distance quickly, if he summoned every speck of energy he could muster.

“Well, Silas,” Nick began, once he’d swallowed his fear and decided that waiting quietly wasn’t going to help anything. “This room is definitely an improvement over that undusted crypt you were calling accommodation, although I’d hardly say the food is up to scratch.” He gestured towards the counterfeit fruits at the table’s centre. “I don’t want to pick broken glass out of my gums all week.”

“Ah, there’s the Redcoat’s famous silver tongue,” Silas said with a grin, looking Nick over. “I notice you haven’t donned the garments I sent you. What a shame; you’ll rather spoil the reunion.”

Nick squinted at the wolf, uncertain of his meaning. “I’m not some fop for you to dress,” he replied.

 “Well, do not fret. We shall eat well soon enough. In the meantime, I can offer you wine.”

Silas took the pitcher in his paw and, with a shove, sent it sliding down the glossy tabletop where it came to a halt beside Nick’s cup. Nick stared at it a moment, and then at Silas. The wine was certainly stolen; Nick honestly had no problem with that. But was it poisoned? He decided such treachery made no sense, even if the Blackwolf’s mind was a tangle of madness. Why invest so much effort in his capture, only to assassinate him in such an anticlimactic fashion, before he’d served any purpose? So, Nick filled his cup and drank. It was rich and firm, with a note of intense berry sweetness hiding at the periphery that danced on and off his tongue. It was incredible.

Silas began to speak. “Nick, you are my prisoner–”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Nick snorted.

“–but you should know that, so long as you behave as instructed, no harm will come to you. I am a gracious host. And as a token of this, I will answer any questions you have.

Nick cocked his head. “Any questions?”

“Any at all.”

Nick fixed his eyes on Silas’ yellow stare. An affable gesture, but he recognised it for what it was -- a rhetorical ploy. It didn’t matter what Nick was told, because his captors had no intention of letting him leave this place alive. It did not fit with Silas’ reputation. It did not fit with the way he and Felix had been allowed to see the fortress, rather than black-bagged so they could tell nothing of its form or location.

Almost certainly, then, the only reason to keep the pair in good health was so they could trade their lives for information about Judith. However, there seemed no call to preserve both of them for such a purpose, especially when one of them was a known brigand of suspect loyalty. So, he decided to ask about something that had been itching at the back of his mind.

“Why are you keeping Felix alive?”

Silas raised an eyebrow. “The panther?” he asked.

“He’s a naval captain. A mammal of honour. You know he won’t breathe a word of betrayal, no matter what you do to him; he’s already weathered greater pain than most could bear. Yet you’re tending to his burns and seeing that he’s treated by a doctor. You want him alive. Why?”

“This is what you want to know?” Silas asked. “Not where you are? The name of the place you have been brought to? You do not wish to know the details of my future plans?”

“I thought I was the one asking the questions,” Nick said dryly.

Silas grinned. He finished the wine in his goblet in slow, savouring gulps, an octet of reflected doppelgangers on the walls doing the same. He put the empty cup down.

“You have heard, I trust,” he began, “of the Sansoran War of Succession? Twenty years ago, the then king of that proud nation, Eduardo, was betrayed by a cousin, Casimar Paladillo, who had long coveted the throne. This usurper had Eduardo and his family imprisoned, and took the crown and sceptre for himself. Now, Eduardo was beloved by many of his subjects, so, of course, a movement of resistance emerged against this treachery, and the new ruler marshalled his army and moved to crush these malcontents without mercy.

“At this time, the king of Zoohaven was Oswalt Lionheart, an honourable lion and dependable ally of Eduardo. Oswalt assembled an armada and sailed it across the Latara to smash the forces of the traitor king and restore the order that had been lost. The Sansoran fleet met them on the waters off their shores, and those waters turned black and red with the ash and blood of battle.

“However, it was all in vain, for then two things occurred. Firstly, the Zoohaven king, who was in his twilight years, took ill and died. Secondly, before the invasion could accomplish anything, Casimar led the deposed king to the open square of his stolen palace, and had Eduardo’s head struck from his shoulders. And his queen’s. And their sons’, and daughters’, and any other whose royal blood made them a potential challenger to the Paladillos.

“Now, if Oswalt, a mammal of integrity, were still seated on the throne at this juncture, there is no doubt he would have ensured that his armies marched on the Sansoran capital, right up to their barred gates, and smashed them all to ruin and plucked the shivering traitors out of the wreckage. He would have seen justice done in the name of this family murdered so foully. Except, Leodore, the son who took his place, was no such paragon, and he instead struck a pact with the bloodied usurpers, a pact that yet endures.”

“A fine story,” Nick said, drumming his fingers on the table. “Very interesting. I thought you were supposed to be answering my question.”

Silas grinned.

“This house, that Casimar thought he had wrenched out root and stem, was called Manchas, and the house was not destroyed so completely as the Paladillos imagined. A single young cub, but a few years old, was spirited out of the country, before the whole family was led to the executioner. This scion was taken to Zooport and placed in the care of the Growltons, a wealthy family with sympathies towards the annexed Manchas house. And it was there, far from the clutches of his tormentors, that the young cub, born Rento Manchas, was rechristened Felix Growlton, and set upon the path to become an officer and a gentlemammal.”

Nick sat still in the quiet that followed, seemingly unable to do other than blink in surprise. “You’re telling me…” he finally managed, “…that Felix is a royal prince?”

“The last surviving heir to the Manchas line,” said Silas with a nod. “The last with a defensible claim to the Sansoran throne.”

Nick could have imagined any number of reasons these bandits might have wanted Felix as a hostage, but this was not amongst them. It was so far-fetched that, paradoxically, he was inclined to believe it as true, even coming from the lips of this deceitful cur. So, Felix was actually foreign royalty. Nick thought about all the times he had deliberately fanned the panther’s temper; how every time he had been rude or crass, it had been to a crown prince. It would have made him smile…but this revelation came shrouded with terrible implications.

“What do you intend to do with him?” Nick asked.

Silas’ grin was pure villainous relish. “The Paladillo dynasty has never sat unshakable, for their foundation is an openly-known treason. All that has kept them in power is greed, paranoia, and uncompromising violence -- a slow and public death for anyone breathing discontent. What do you think butchers such as these would pay for the life of one who poses a threat to their position? A fortune, no doubt, but how grand of one? What is the weight in gold of this panther’s life?”

Nick felt his lip curl in disgust. He wanted to curse Silas as a knave and a degenerate, lower than fleas and worms and the other creeping vermin below their feet, but he knew his barbs wouldn’t cut; Silas simply put no value behind life other than his own.

“Tell me why,” he said quietly. “Your vaults are groaning with a store of treasure that couldn’t be spent in a lifetime. You don’t need the gold. You don’t _want_ the gold. Why do it?”

“I could tell you why,” Silas replied, “and I will. But I have spoken at length, and first I would like to ask you a question; why do you think you have been spared? What do you imagine your value is?”

“I’m no lost heir to a stolen empire,” Nick said. “No one is going to part with a grand reward for the pleasure of taking my head off.”

“No,” Silas agreed. “You are no king’s son. But you are valuable in other ways.”

“I won’t tell you about Hopps,” Nick said, suddenly tired of the pageantry, the parlour game. “Not a thing that you can use against her. Her plans. Her history. Her temperament or weaknesses or fears. I won’t say a word. You might as well talk to the fucking fruit bowl. So, why don’t you summon your torturers and let’s get this over with, because I’m done speaking.” At that, he swept the pitcher off the table, smashing it against the floor, and folded his arms.

Silas merely stared at the obstinate fox. He glanced over the edge of the table, where the spilled wine was running like blood in the tiny gutters between the flagstones. Then he looked back at Nick, and he smirked.

“Hopps,” he said. “Judith Laverne Hopps. Born 1739 to Stuart and Bonnie Hopps; migrated from the Burrows to Zooport in 1755; enrolled at Zooport University in 1757, and the Zoohaven Naval Academy three years after that” – Silas’ smile broadened as he watched Nick’s eyes grow wide, his expression falling – “both secured with the patronage of one Alexander Milton-Hopps, who has a position at the Office of Commerce, and had to relinquish a considerable sum to induce her acceptance; graduated -- deserved honours but did not receive them; served as a midshipmammal aboard the _Imperishable_ under Captain Reynold ‘Rex’ Pawdritch, then lieutenant, then captain of a sloop in the fleet of Commodore Adam Pepper. Has acquired by this time a reputation for bladecraft, fairness and dedication to her duty, although many remark that she is inflexible and does things by the book. Admiral Bogo’s personal remark: ‘promising, but needs far more experience.’ In 1764, Judith returns to Zooport with the notable pirate, the Redcoat, in her custody. She then organises a conditional pardon to have the fox conscripted into her crew. The word, excluding those who simply curse at the influx of filth amongst their number, is that she means to leverage this bandit’s acumen, granting her an edge where her inexperience would otherwise let her down.”

By now Nick’s mouth was agape in disbelief, and it only dropped further when Silas continued. “Very recently, Judith has taken this fox into her bed as well, certainly knowing the sheer chaos such a repulsive transgression would incite if it became publicly known.” Silas’ eyes seemed to narrow and his lip to curl at this utterance, the look adopted when the devout speaks of the heathen, the inquisitor of the witch. “I know all that could possibly be of interest about this rabbit and her schemes. I knew that the report of a laden ship sailing to Bersei was false. I knew that she was coming here with three rated vessels. There is nothing you could tell me that would surprise, and if this was your sole source of value, you would be worthless.”

“How do you know all this?” Nick asked, his voice a whisper.

Silas sat back in his chair. “Let’s just say that, while Hopps might suspect that there are those in positions of power that wish her harm, she could never guess who they are or how deeply they wish it. For some in Zoohaven, her death has become an urgent necessity. Bronhelm was not successful at this. I, however, will not fail.”

Nick’s mind was a tumult of disordered thoughts crashing together. It did not astonish that a spy had passed details of Judith along to Silas. But to know this much? Every stitch of her history? To know that they were _lovers_? Someone must have carefully tailed her to his quarters that night; seen her coming and going, heard the quiet clamour of their consummation, caught their entwined scents.

Someone knew their dangerous secret. Their candle in the dark. And it was being used against them in the most devastating fashion imaginable.

Nick was sorting through just how terrible this was, and what it might mean for Judith, when Silas broached his unasked question. “You must be wondering, then, why I want you alive. Why I want you, whole and breathing, when there is nothing you could tell me of Hopps that I do not already know, and nothing you would tell me of her, even if I brought to you the lash or knife or heated brand. And I’ve yet to answer your question -- why maraud and pillage when we sit on enough gold to spend each day from now ‘til death in sumptuous luxury. Very well. I’ll tell you.

“The gold does not matter. It’s a way to keep score. It keeps the _Predator_ supplied and the crew in comfort while we sail. We are, for the things we have done, marked wolves; we couldn’t re-join the civilised world, even if we wanted. Which is just as well, for we do not. What we want, what _I_ want…”

He leaned back in his chair, eyes closed. His nostrils swelled as he took a deep breath.

“…is the hunt. I want to hunt my prey. I want to smell their terror at my approach and to track their fleeing pawprints over sand or snow and to taste hot blood. There’s no thrill that can claim its equal. I want to hunt until every last weak, withered, useless prey mammal is torn to shreds. I want to wipe them from the world.”

As he vented, Nick could see Silas’ face change: his white teeth flashing, the musk of his anger building.

“That’s why I will hunt down and slaughter this Hopps. Because her very existence is an offence -- a dribble of filth parading around in the place of some deserving other. A piece of the puzzle whose edges do not match with those already laid, yet forces itself into place and spoils the picture. She must be discarded.”

Silas opened his eyes; the glint of madness therein had swelled like a forest-fire, roaring with truly shocking intensity, and he pinned Nick, who looked horrified and furious at the Blackwolf’s callous and blood-soaked manifesto, to his chair with that demented gaze.

“So. What of you, Nick? Why keep you, if you have no utility in helping burn this wart Judith off the hide of the world? Well, the answer is…you’re you. You’re Nicholas Wilde. The one and only.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (The chapter art will be along soon; I drew Silas, and he looked like a badly-made playdough Nick. Time to nap and try again in the morning)
> 
> I have been so excited about this reveal for so long; it occurred to me almost as soon as I'd posted the first chapter of Fox's Guile. Why not make Felix a movie character in disguise? Nothing terribly important rests on the reveal yet (besides explaining why Felix is happy to work under Judith and why he admires her; he's been hiding from the terrors of his past and his own destiny for years, and she refuses to be fettered by such fears) but it's going to be a part of the story going forward in a big way. If I don't die of old age before we get there, that is.
> 
> Now, before the nit-pickers set upon the paragraph, I think I've got my dates right, putting Judith at about 25-26, Nick in his early thirties, and Silas older than either. Judith has been in the navy for about 4 years (and the use of about there shows that I'm not that confident about the maths...) There's no significance to the dates beyond they felt right -- it isn't 1765 to coincide with the Stamp Act or anything. This is a world of an entirely new casting, all similarities to our own a coincidence.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! And there's a few more twists to come...


	12. My Father

Nick looked at Silas, staring into those trembling pupils that betrayed a mind demented, a mind obsessed. Nick had been through speaking. He had wanted nothing more to do with this black wretch. And yet, somehow, he was drawn back to him, like the souls Vilka had spoken of, tethered inseparably to their damnation.

“You want me?” Nick said, slow and disbelieving. “You speak nonsense, Silas. You’re insane. Your mind is cracked.”

“Cracked, am I?” Silas asked through a sneer. “Insane? By what narrow definition? Because I say I want you? You only feel this because you haven’t the scantest clue as to who you really are. Or perhaps you mean because I see prey for what they should be -- meat. Sustenance for their superiors. Only an addled fool could look upon what is instinctive, what is ordained by nature, and call it insanity. What’s insane is claiming that predator and prey ought to coexist; claiming air is water, and that I ought to breathe it.”

Silas looked into his empty cup and seemed to consider calling for fresh wine.

“Once,” he continued, “in a dim and distant past that none seem to remember, the world was of a right order. Prey grazed, predator stalked, and the eternal competition bred strong and able hunters; lashed firm muscle to strong bone. Somehow, through laws and treaties and sickening compromise, the urge to hunt was burned and ground out of most, and now there are precious few left with the courage to live as instinct commands them.”

“Is that what you are?” Nick asked sarcastically. “One of the precious few? Some self-selected apotheosis?”

“Prove it wrong, then,” said Silas. “How else to gauge a mammal’s worth, if not by the measure of their ability to prevent their own destruction? Every port the _Predator_ ever struck was nothing but a warren of lice-ridden herbivores, only good for their warm flesh.” He leaned back in his chair, eyes suddenly distant. “They call me monster when I sail upon such dens and slaughter them, feed on their fatted meat and take the gold that was theirs by no right precept. But no one feels sorrow for the grass in the field or the fruit on the tree when it is consumed. No one condemns the grazing cattle. I find it all so strange”

“Of course you do,” said Nick. “You’re the craziest mongrel to ever walk upright. You’re a prisoner of your own broken mind. You’re looking around, you see iron bars on all sides, and somehow you think your free.”

“Now _that_ is hypocrisy hard to match, coming from one such as yourself,” Silas returned. “I won’t believe for a second that you’ve taken every available opportunity to escape your bondage. You’re the one who mistakes his captivity for freedom. This rabbit really must mean something to you.” Silas leaned across the table, his sneer practically oozing disgust. “You’re not just fucking this rank prey -- you’re in love with her.”

Nick growled, and he sounded just as wolves do in matters of dispute. “You’re not fit to judge her, you lunatic. She’s twice the mammal you’ll ever be -- twice the warrior, too.”

“I can’t imagine what it must be like to lust after prey-flesh in this way,” Silas continued; he refused to swallow Nick’s bait. “But I know what it’s like to hunt it. To taste it. Don’t you wonder yourself? Don’t you imagine how glorious it would be to stalk her? To put your teeth in her back? To shake until you hear that tiny spine crack? It’s the sweetest thing there is.”

The piercing ring of a dinner bell peeled through the air before Nick could respond. He raised his head, ears twitching at the intruding sound.

And then he caught a scent.

Seared meat. Sizzling grease.

He looked back at Silas, his face a portrait of horror.

A wolf came through the archway -- Vilka, ever the willing participant in Silas’ dark performances. He had a large silver serving platter, which he placed on the table before removing its domed lid.

Underneath, the fire-blackened remains of a carcass: a flank of thin ribs webbed with oily flesh; a pair of sinewy haunches; the knobs of vertebrae terminating at a mutilated head. The teeth had been pulled and the ears struck off, but Nick knew at once that it was a rabbit.

“Fetch me some fresh wine, Vilka,” said Silas. “You know how well a good red goes with fresh game.”

Vilka departed with a bow, and Silas seized one of the legs -- he required no knife for a task his claws and fangs could handle -- and stripped it from the body, strands of flesh and fat dangling from the ragged end.

“Who was it?” Silas said, seeing Nick’s repulsed expression. “Just some peasant. Some farmer from the mountains, loping trees and scratching for food in the cold earth. No one knew he existed. No one will miss him. No one will miss his family. The most honourable thing he could have hoped for is this. All rabbits, of all kind; this is where they belong.” Silas tore a mouthful off the leg and began to chew, blood and oil running off the dark fur of his muzzle. “Mhm. There really is nothing to equal it. You’re sure you’ll try none?”

“Monster,” Nick snarled, his voice trembling with fury, his paws balled into fists by his side. “There’ll be a bloody reckoning for your crimes one day. That ‘dribble of filth’? That ‘rank prey’? She’ll put a sword in your black heart, and I hope you bleed slowly when she does. I hope you get to savour every moment.”

“You know, you make rather poor dinner conversation,” Silas sighed, “lecturing and sermonising like some righteous priest of the Herd. You’re just like your father.”

That drained the anger right out of Nick, and he sat and stared blankly, a reflection of the vacant statues that bore witness in that room.

“What?”

Vilka returned at that moment with a fresh pitcher and refilled Silas’ cup.

“Stay, Vilka. You know the story; make sure I get the details right.” He looked back at Nick, who stared back with a look perfectly split between confusion and seething hate. Silas drank his wine, and seemed to ponder how best to proceed.

“The _Predator_ was, in a life long since passed, a Sansoran war vessel. A dark beauty -- _Justicia._ The last to stand at its helm under that title was John Wilde. I doubt you’ve ever heard his name; you would have been a youngster then, chasing perfumed vixens…well, chasing something, anyway. And he did not go by that name, at any rate; Honest John was his moniker. He was called so mostly because he kept to a code. He wouldn’t allow theft from those who could not spare what was taken. He demanded his crew use their manners around a woman; he was successful enough with the ladies, on account of this. Worst of all, he would not suffer blood spilled unless he deemed it necessary. He mistook life for something precious. Sentimental, worthless dribble.

“Well, he got one of those orbiting vixens with kit, and then he took a fancy to her and brought her aboard his ship. But she died in childbirth, and took her litter with her. All but one. Now, the pitiable hypocrite John thought a pirate’s life too good for this tuft of fur bearing his likeness. Wanted something better for his only son -- so he claimed, anyway, for his actions were of someone who wanted rid of such a child. The next time he dropped anchor at a port, he parted with the bawling kit; left it in the care of some part-time wet-nurse and full-time whore. Gave her money to see the fox was taken care of; the whole crew stood and watched him count out a small fortune, and more than a few wondered at his sanity.

“I was only a whelp myself at the time, just big enough to work the lines and run errands at the pleasure of my father, one of John’s crew; don’t ask me to name him, for he was a worthless fool as well, and I’ll see that he passes forgotten into the void of history. For years, for _fifteen years_ , I worked aboard that ship; I rose to first mate, and all the while I watched as that blundering fox grew less and less worthy of his station. A wolf can only take so much.

“One night, me and a band of other like minds set the engine of conspiracy in motion. The _Justicia_ was too good for this insipid fox. It belonged in our paws. It belonged to us predators, us true-blooded hunters. There were enough of us to overthrow John’s retinue of loyal followers, after which he was powerless to stop the inevitable.”

“You knew my father?” Nick said quietly, almost to himself. “You knew my father and betrayed him?”

Silas ignored him; he was in the clutches of his own reminiscence. “We took his ship, and then I killed the two others who fancied themselves as standing at the helm. I ripped out their throats with my teeth, and I howled at the moon; I commanded it, _observe this ceremony, to mark my date of initiation._ Then I promised the others who bore witness to join me in a future rich with gold and blood. I promised them the hunt.”

Silas began to calm himself, sucking in a great lungful of air and sighing. He returned out of the past to the present, and glanced sideways at Vilka.

“Have I forgotten anything?” he asked.

Vilka shook his head. “The very same tale you’ve told us all at one time or another. Ah, it still moistens the eye to hear it...” He wiped a mock tear away with his finger.

Silas returned to Nick, shuddering in building fury at the far end of the table.

“Judith will dock at Tor-Kropa,” Silas said calmly, peeling the second haunch of the butchered body before him. “When she sets sail from that place, she’s fair game once more. I’ll hunt her, slaughter her, and drink that delicious blood, finer than the juice of any vineyard you’ll ever taste. And when I do Nick, you’ll be right there with me. Let’s entertain the impossible; imagine this loam-filthened rabbit does somehow wrest the advantage from me. Will she really be prepared to sacrifice your life to fulfil her duty? She’d have to be some iron-hearted beast -- she has, as I understand it, commands to take me alive, and that won’t happen so long as I have a blade at your throat.

“Now let’s entertain the inevitable; I will spread her guts on the deck of her crumbling ship, and you’ll watch as I do it. You’ll watch me devour her. And you’ll deserve every moment of it Nick, because you’re cast from the same flawed clay as your father, with all the same hideous imperfections, and others even more revolting.” He flashed a smile. “That’s why you’re valuable.”

Nick’s anger finally boiled over; came screaming out of him like ropes of lava from an erupting caldera. He leaped onto the table and rushed along its length, his balled fists opening to reveal claws that tore grooves in the wood as he went. He swept the centrepiece aside, smashing the fruit to rainbow splinters. All the while his murderous eyes were locked on Silas’ throat.

Teeth. He’d use his teeth. He’d scissor through those braids and sink them into the flesh and pipes beyond and tear it all apart. Damn the knife, he’d use his teeth-

Something suddenly grabbed a hold of his tail, and his head rushed downward and smacked muzzle-first into the tabletop. His world exploded in a haze of pain and white light. Something wet was in his nose. The paw that had seized his tail dragged him off the table, and when his swimming vision calmed the pair of guards who had brought him here had him restrained by both arms. He struggled in their grasp like a lunatic trying to slip loose from a belted jacket, his eyes rolling wildly all the time.

“You bastard!” he roared. “You want to crush all the things I hold dear, huh?! You’ll kill Judith?! You killed my father?! I’ll see you fucking dead, I swear it!”

Silas, who hadn’t so much as budged while Nick had barrelled towards him, pushed his chair back and came towards the fox, the steaming haunch of rabbit still in his paw. He paused in front of Nick, close enough that the sickening vapours off the cooked flesh turned his stomach.

“You can imagine that, can’t you?” he said. “Me, running a blade through your dear father. But that isn’t what happened.” He reached out his spare paw and touched what turned out to be blood streaming out of Nick’s nose. He raised the crimson blot to his own flared nostrils, and smiled.

“He’s below us, right now. Has been for years. I swear, I haven’t so much as touched him…would you like to see him?”

The foundations of Nick’s world had been crumbling; now they disintegrated entirely, and Nick fell into the hungry void beneath. He offered no threat or oath of revenge; he simply stared, as if upon the face of some mythic devil found real and existent upon the mortal plain where it had no right to be. He had nothing to say.

“I’m afraid our time together is at an end, Nick. I have a rabbit’s ruin to toil over. And do send old Honest John my fondest regards.”

Silas raised the bead of blood to his mouth, supping it like honeydew and smiling at its apparent sweetness, before he turned to the guards. “Take him below, and reunite the son with the father. They really do deserve one another. It’s just a shame you didn’t wear the garments I offered you. So many years apart, and you’ll meet him looking like this? You’ve rather spoiled the reunion.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been AWOL a little longer than I intended. Two reasons; one good, one bad. The good one is that I was working on a story for the 'What If' collaboration, which will go up sometime later in the year. It's a western gunfight between our ever-intrepid duo and some well-known movie villains. It's almost done, so I can focus on this again. The bad one is that I'm busy at work and going on holiday soon, so this might be it for a couple of months. I just couldn't leave the story where it was, though.
> 
> So, do I just hate Nick or something? It certainly seems that way; mostly I guess it's a consequence of the narrative having Nick separated from anyone he could commiserate with for so long, so he's either introspective or talking to people he hates. But don't worry; he'll rise like a phoenix from the ashes before long.
> 
> (Still no chapter art; I hate everything I draw at the moment, for I am a tortured artist, and I'm off to slash my paintings, comme c’est triste!)


	13. Challange

_The young fox held the wheel at the helm of the ship, looking out to where the falling sun was turning the sea into a cauldron of molten gold. He drank in the scenery and the alkaline air, and marvelled at how, within the tiny fragment of time that would be his life, he had found the calling that completed him._

_John Wilde was, without doubt, the luckiest fox to ever draw breath._

_As he savoured the sun-gilded seascape, a tall black wolf emerged onto the quarter deck, a long roll of parchment tucked under one arm._

_“Stare at that too long and your eyes will run down your cheeks like hot wax,” he remarked wryly._

_John turned and flashed him a grin. “Sounds like a ploy to me; I bet if you watch long enough, the sunlight traps in your eye, and that’s how you got that golden stare of yours. You’re trying to protect the secret.”_

_The wolf’s eyes wrinkled; they were kindly and good-natured and, as John said, the colour of blooming dandelions. “I doubt yellow eyes would suit you, captain -- the ladies seem wholly infatuated with your hazel browns. At any rate, here’s that map of the Ahogado Straits,” he said, passing John the chart. “And Ed warned that storm to the south will most likely break on us before sunrise tomorrow.”_

_John shook his head. “We’re sailing straight on. The Zoohaven navy hasn’t been on these waters for months, not since they chased the rum runners out of there. We should make fall at Law’s End without incident by tomorrow.”_

_“We’d better. There’s a she-wolf in some whorehouse there with my name on her. I’ll have her howling like there’s a damned full moon.”_

_That earned a chuckled from John, who took a moment to regard the wolf. “How’s that whelp of yours?”_

_The wolf’s eyes suddenly brightened by double, and he smiled wide enough to show his fangs. “He’s growing stronger every day; he’ll be big enough to lend a paw soon -- scrub the deck and the like. By Luna’s grace, he’ll be a dashing buccaneer, just like his father.”_

_“If he’s got half your grit, he’ll make a fine sailor,” John said. “And I swear, I’ll keep a watchful eye on him if ever you can’t.”_

_“Oh, I doubt that,” the wolf muttered. “There’s too many other things competing for your eye.” He nodded to a vixen coming up the stairwell, who fixed the pair with a beaming smile that could melt the iron-hard ice of a Whitewaste’s glacier. She was wearing a cream gown with lace hems that swirled in the breeze. She looked like something otherworldly -- an angel emerged from a place of immortality and purity, here to mingle with the low, mud-caked rabble and to lift their spirits before vanishing into the heavens once more._

_“You’re right,” said John softly. “There’s nothing else I see. Nothing but her.”_

_The wolf left with a smirk, and the vixen fell into John’s arms, planting a honey-sweet kiss on his muzzle. When they drew apart, he reached one paw down and laid it on her swollen stomach._

_“How are you coping with being at sea?” he asked. “Does it agree with motherhood?”_

_“And what would you do if I told you it didn’t?” she returned; there was a razor-edge to her gentle tongue, and by quip alone John believed she could carve mountain granite. “Take me straight back to the plantation and return me to my father? He’d kill you as soon as he saw you, and I’d be next.”_

_“You’re very certain of that,” John said. “He might well be celebrating that he’s rid of you.”_

_“John Wilde, you beast!” she laughed, twisting his ear. “My father was right about you; a villain without honour!”_

_He smiled, and his paw travelled over the surface of her round belly. “But truly; are you well? Being aboard the ship causes you no discomfort?”_

_She reached down and trapped his paw with her own, pressing it against her soft flesh. “I’m fine, and so are they. They’ll be strong, hearty foxes, just like their father.”_

_“Foxes bred for the sea, eh?” John said with a grin. “With strong muscles and no fear. Foxes with salt and steel in their veins.”_

_She smiled, but there was something wrong -- a wrinkle at the crook of her mouth, a twitch in the corner of her eye. John noticed._

_“What’s the matter?”_

_She was a long time answering, looking for the softest words she could find. “Do you want your children, each and all, to grow up just as you have? To follow your every footstep?”_

_“…You don’t want them to be outlaws, do you?”_

_“It’s…nothing to do with you,” she said, resting her dainty paws on his shoulders. “I love you John, and I love you for what you are. But you were allowed your own choices, as was I. We selected this life from a whole world of possibilities. It seems a betrayal that we should make their choices for them.”_

_John was looking at himself, reflected in the mirror of her eyes, those dazzling green eyes, as green as the tender stalk of a blooming seed, that had tangled him up the very first time he’d seen them. He sighed, and he smiled._

_“When our children grow up,” he said, “they will be whatever they desire. They will captain their own destinies.”_

_Those green eyes sparkled with delight, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He felt her belly press against his own, and he felt this covenant with his children now sealed._

_“Have you thought about names for them?” she asked softly into his ear._

_“Not until I know if it’s sons or daughters you’re brewing in there,” he said._

_“I doubt it will be all one or the other,” she said. “I’ll give you sons and daughters both.”_

_“In either case, no; I hadn’t any special names put aside…” He thought for a moment, and then said, “The first son should definitely take your father’s name, shouldn’t he? To honour his heritage and all that?”_

_“He’d be furious, John!” she laughed. “He’d vow to murder you if he ever found out!”_

_“He’s probably so vowed already,” John returned. “There’s no sense in treading lightly where he’s concerned. He’ll never see either of us again, and our children neither.”_

_“Alright,” she said. “It’s settled; his name will be…”_

 

 

The door Nick was brought to was a fortress; an array of thick iron bars that no mammal, size irrelevant, could hope to prise apart. While a pair of wolves kept hold of him -- honestly, the impulse to struggle had vanished from the fox, and he stood loosely, as if his bones were melted inside him -- another unlocked the door and pushed it open on its iron pins the size of warclubs. He was shoved into the gloom, where there was just enough light to see it was a vast circular cell, cut from the raw rock of the mountain.

But what Nick really noticed was the smell. There was a sour tang in the air, a sarcophagal stink, as if he had just stepped into a mausoleum.

He had.

It was at the far side of the room. A dark shape. Small. Bunched up.

Nick saw it and walked towards it slowly, numbly, in a dream-state, in a trance. Cold. Ice in the pit of his stomach. His heart beating with such dread-born speed that he felt he might vomit it out.

The body was curled up, knees pressed to its chest, arms wrapped protectively around itself as a child might clutch a blanket. The mummified skin left behind hung loosely on the skeleton, slat-ribs and angular joints poking through. What hair that remained was paper-dry, the colour of dead grass. The skull shrunken. Jaw lolling open. Two startled-looking black recesses where the eyes had rotted long ago.

Here was Nick’s father. Here he was.

Nick approached slowly, with trepidation, as if the ghoulish carcass might suddenly return to life. As he came close he noticed there was a dark circle surrounding the forlorn body, and he realised with shock that it was a gore-stain -- all the blood and fat and viscera that had putrefied and run out of his father’s now empty cavities, long-dried and soft as talc underfoot.

Nick squatted down and looked his father in his sunken sockets. He was crying now, though he was beyond noticing; for him, the world entire -- the past and future and the fleeting present-- had ceased to exist. His tears left small craters in the dried remains where they fell.

“Would you like to know how he died?” came a gruff voice from the doorway. Nick looked over his shoulder. Kurt -- just he; the guards that had brought Nick here had departed -- was standing there, resting his arms through the iron bars. The hollow of his eye was hidden behind a strip of cotton, tied about his head like a bandana.

“I came and saw him, each day he was in here. I was the only one there at the very end, when he breathed his last. So, would you like to know?”

Nick was silent. Kurt grinned cruelly.

“I’ve never liked that preening black bastard, but you can’t deny he’s got a good sense for punishment. After he yanked that ship out from under your dear father, Silas dragged John down here and tossed him in this cell. He left him for two days -- no food or water; not even a guard to hurl abuse or pleas at. Then he returned and told John that if he wanted to save his own life, he was going to have to kill for it. Said, ‘as soon as you’re ready -- when you’re so eaten up with hunger that it feels like a great burrowing worm is turning loops inside you -- call for me. Call out, and I will have one quivering prey mammal brought to you and laid at your feet.’ He just had to kill whatever it was. Kill it, eat it, and be saved.”

Kurt leaned in close, putting his snub muzzle up against the bars. “The coward never did. He sat down, right where he rests yet, and he waited. I came down and watched him every day. He got smaller and smaller, shrinking in his clothes, as if he were slipping backwards in time and becoming a child again. And even at the very end, when he was too weak to stand and his breath rasped and he was filthy with his own faeces, hunting was too good for him.”

Kurt was hoping to provoke Nick to anger, but the fox just crouched motionless there on the floor, and soon the wolf grew bored. He stepped back from the doorway, and said, “Well, maybe this won’t be your fate as well. Maybe you’ll prove to be a bit more resourceful; a bit more tenacious. But I doubt it.” He turned to leave.

“Kurt,” Nick growled, and the wolf paused and turned to look back. Nick was still sitting there, unmoving.

“You wolves all worship the moon, I’ve heard. You call it Luna. She’s sacred to all of you, whether you truly believe she’s watching, or that she’s just a story…”

He turned his head slowly, and the eyes he fixed on Kurt were completely feral, betraying a hot need to see blood spilled and flesh rent. They were predator’s eyes.

“She’s listening, and she can bear witness to these words. I’m going to kill you all. Every last one of you damned wolves. Silas for certain; he’ll die last, and he’ll die slow. But _you?_ You’ll die first. Before events have run their course -- and trust me, the terminus is close -- I’ll slit your fucking throat.”

Kurt laughed; he was not accustomed to fear, and nothing about Nick -- not his threats, nor his glare, nor the sheer surety with which he set down this foretelling -- impressed him.

“If you want that chance, Wilde,” he said, “then you already know what you need to do -- and for you, it won’t be as easy as just butchering some helpless prey.” He held up two fingers, and then motioned towards the fabric strip that encircled his head, hiding his eyeless socket. “Two chances, Wilde, and a terrible forfeit should you fail. Come and find me when you’re the new captain of the _Predator_ , and I’ll gladly offer you my throat.”

With that, Kurt turned and vanished from the doorway, his callous laughter echoing in the darkness. And that sound shrank and shrank until only silence remained. A silence that was deep and solitary. The silence of an unmarked grave in an empty corner of the world.

 

 

Nick cupped his father’s cheek; the flesh was dry and hard, like treebark, and the fur came away and fell into his palm as he touched it. But he felt no capacity for revulsion; sad and shrivelled though this fossil was, it was still his father, a figure he had spent much of his life both hating and longing to meet. And now, the opportunity to speak with him, and with his mother, was lost forever.

Nick had been no fool growing up. He knew Madame Genevieve, a stout polar bear who was an irresistible blend of physical strength and alluring femininity, couldn’t be his real mother. He’d always assumed his mother was one of the many vixens who’d worked at the bordello, and had either fled the moment he’d been born or had never breathed a word of her maternal relationship to him. His father, he’d assumed, was a paying customer.

Genevieve had been kind enough -- a saint, really, given he’d thought himself to be the bastard sprog of some profitable patron. She’d given him a warm bed and kept him fed, and had even schooled him as well as an unlettered prostitute could hope to. Of course, now he knew why. His father _was_ a paying customer -- just not _that_ sort of paying customer. Even so, most would have just taken the gold and turned the helpless kit into the street, and he knew Genevieve had never considered it. She had, truly, been an angel.

And it hadn’t been enough.

There’d been a hole inside him. A gap that commanded to be filled. He had no idea what was wrong, but he felt as if his future was fading away before it had even come to pass. He had to leave.

At thirteen, he stole some minor valuables from Genevieve’s room and vanished in the night. For two days he slunk about in the alleys and backroads, trying to devise a plan of permanent escape and avoid his caretaker’s clutches -- if she found him, he wouldn’t have the strength to stop her dragging him back home and flogging him like wheat under the flail. In the end, he’d managed to barter passage to the mainland on a fishing vessel. That’s when he discovered life aboard a sailing ship; the salt ocean had come rushing into him, and had filled that gap to brimming. He became addicted.

When they had docked, he’d pleaded with the captain to let him stay aboard, and after that callous hippo had forcibly picked him up and thrown him over the ship’s gunwale, he’d spent a week entire stalking the wharfs, looking for a crew that would take him. Eventually, a merchant galley employed him as a swabbie, and from then on it simply didn’t matter to him that his father was missing and his mother a whore. He had the sea. He had the far horizon.

And while that was happening -- while he’d been scrubbing down salt-clogged decks and untangling lines, and goggling at the blue infinity all around him -- his father had been here. Starving.

It should have been a brutish anger that seized him, roiling up inside like boiling water; the sort of furious abandon that had swallowed him whole when he’d stood before Kurt or Silas and suffered their grins and mockery. But this wasn’t the feeling inside him. Another took him now; something cold and cogent and almost alien to him.

A desire for revenge so pure that it manifested rationally instead of in a seethe of wrathful violence. He was going to put the Blackwolf down.

For Judith? Yes.

For his father? Certainly.

And for himself. For the sleights against him that reached back more than fifteen years. For a past sundered and a future in jeopardy.

He noticed something shiny hanging from his father’s neck, and he reached into his tattered coat to retrieve it. It was a necklace, wrought from Ja’karian gold, the pendant of which Nick recognized as Gahora’s mark -- a flat circle crested with a three-pointed star. It was a sigil much esteemed by adventurers; the symbol was supposed to be a boon to those who showed true bravery. It was supposed to grant good fortune.

Nick turned the pendant over in his paw and saw a delicate inscription carved into its back -- _My Dearest Emilia, blessings on your day of birth, and may you prosper eternally_.

Underneath, something else was inscribed in a ruder font.

_Death comes for all. Meet him smiling_

Was this his father’s work, this apothegm? Nick looped the chain over his neck and tucked the pendant behind the collar of his shirt. Sound advice. So be it.

He stood up and looked around the room. It was broad, a good twenty feet in diameter. The masons who’d carved the walls had fought with the heterogeneous stone -- granite and greywacke, here and there seams of sparkling quartz -- to render it smooth. They’d done well, and its even surface was spoiled only by four black iron brackets which held no torches; what light there was fell from some thin fissure in the rocks high above them.

He walked to the wall and laid his palm against it, seeming to test for the exactness of its level. He began to walk the room’s edge, tracing his paw along it as he went. His steps were slow and deliberate; he looked as if he were unaccustomed to walking, and was taking his time to ensure each footfall was perfect in its coordination. He walked around the entirety of the cell in in this fashion, and then he walked the border of the room again, and then once more, and then he took his paw off the wall and tightened the circumference of his path that his steps traced a spiral towards the centre. He was at this for some time.

When he finally reached the room’s middle-point, he sat down and closed his eyes, and began to sort through every detail he’d harvested, committing them to memory.

Once he was satisfied those features were firmly cemented, he lay down there on the floor and began to recall in his mind the battle he’d witnessed between Silas and Kurt. Every step. Every thrust. The nature of every movement. Every particular that he was certain was true. He relived the fight, from the first drawn blade to Kurt’s mutilation, over and over again, and fell asleep to those two wolves trading vicious blows on the battleground of his subconscious.

 

 

He was awoken by the scrape of a dinner tray against the stone floor, and sat up to see a dark shadow moving behind the door. The salver that had come through the gap had two bowls of gruel on it -- evidently, Silas meant to offend him further by providing breakfast for both Nick and his father. A stroke of ingenious heartlessness, and yesterday it would have sent Nick into a froth of anger.

Not today.

“Hey!” he cried, and the shadow paused before leaning into the light.

“What do you want?” his jailer sneered.

Nick got to his feet.

“I want you to take a message to your captain,” he said. “Tell him his time is done. Tell him Nick will challenge him for his freedom.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, now you're drowning under a great big wave of accumulated fictional history. But this is the last reveal about something from the past that is conjuring an effect on present issues. Now, it's all about the future.
> 
> So, all those guesses imagining that John might still be alive, perhaps slightly malnourished or senile, or even perfectly healthy and ready to cross swords with his old nemesis...no. Nick's father has been dead since I planned this story months ago. The build-up to it, however, was immensely satisfying to write; a huge emotional catharsis, a weight off my shoulder. I do realise, of course, that the grotesqueness of it is not everyone's cup of tea (even the chapter art this time is pretty confronting), and it might seem to be a tonal shift. Just recall what I said about peaks and troughs; the darkest moments make the brighter shine all the more potently.
> 
> By the way, this story will be doing the rounds on the ZNN update page now, and it seemed a good moment to thank you constant readers. I have absolutely no idea what the regular circulation of viewer for this story is, but it's enough to keep me excited everytime I go to post new work. If it wasn't for you, this story would have ended ages ago, I'd be using this time to sing karaoke into a broomhandle, and The Hunt wouldn't be popping up weekly on any webpages. So really, thanks.


	14. Hold Fast

Five wolves entered the cell, four holding flaming torches aloft to scatter the underground darkness. They were silent and slow-moving, and they bore an air of bastardised solemnity, like holy priests in bloodstained robes. One stood in the cellmouth while the others took their torches and slotted them into the brackets on the walls, rendering the cell of hellish aspect, bathing it in red light and birthing a quartet of shadow-foxes standing at cardinal angles to their originator, mirroring his quiet, unflinching manner, watching as the wolves filed back through the door. When the last exited, Silas was revealed in the entrance, demonic in the torchglow, fangs bared in a taunting grin.

He entered slowly, watching his challenger with carnivorous intensity. Once he’d walked into the cell proper, the door squealed shut behind him, followed by the loud snap of a sealing lock, and then no sound. The spectators who had gathered were quiet in their expectation of blood, nothing more to see than paired white glints, dozens in number, watching from behind the bars.

Silas stopped some distance from the cell’s centre and regarded Nick. The fox stared back without speaking; no word from him was necessary, for his desire was writ plainly in his face, in his narrow eyes and the hard line of his mouth. He was bare to the waist, a golden pendant resting against his chest and glittering in the firelight. He had taken off his shirt and laid it, like a funeral shroud, over his father’s body, When Silas saw this, he smirked.

“I suppose you don’t wish me to look upon him,” he mused, and there was no hint from Nick if this was truth or otherwise. “Of course you would deny me that gratification. But I can respect this. I can grant you this one mercy. It’s all you shall have.”

He had two swords in his paws -- one _Renascitur_ , one _Nihilo_ \-- and he threw Nick’s sword across the room where the fox caught it by the scabbard. Then Silas shrugged out of his black longcoat, standing there in his vest and purple sash, before he drew his sword and let the empty sheathe fall with a clatter.

“Do you know what nihilo means?” Silas asked after a long pause, holding up his blade, bright as newly-tempered steel in the crackling light. “Well, you know the Book of the Herd, I’m sure, whose wisdom is writ in the Old Tongue. Therein lies to story of the All-herd, the god who created this world. It was in no common fashion, either; not the way a mason might build a house or tower, scraping together the stone and gravel he needs from other places. The All-herd fashioned the world and the space around it at once from perfect nothingness. He created it _ex nihilo_. Nihilo, then, is an absolute destruction; a ruination so complete that the thing destroyed ceases even to exist.”

Silas gave his blade a testing cut through the air, and its sharpness sung a high note in the confines of the cell.

“You might think you have the force of creation -- of rebirth -- on your side. But you must know that creation cannot stand before destruction. It always yields. It always breaks. So, how does it feel, Nick? To be the last barrier holding the tide of annihilation back, keeping it from your beloved Judith, and knowing the price of failure? Because if you do fail here, there’s nothing and no one to keep me from riding across the ocean to visit death upon her. And you will see it all through one eye, or you’ll be dead. How does it feel?”

Nick’s chest rose and fell in the low light. His breath was calm. His nerves were unrattled. The wolf’s rhetoric was nothing but words, harmless words. And Nick had not called this monster here so they might trade harmless words. He drew his own sword.

“Come over here,” he said softly, “so I can split your heart in two.”

Silas grinned, and calmly levelled Nihilo at Nick, eyes locked on the fox over the untrembling tip of his sword. Nick did the same, and with blades pointed in mutual accusation, they began to circle on another, slowly, their steps so carefully placed that they made no sound upon the flagstone floor.

Nick knew that the best way to triumph in this sort of fight, a one-on-one duel, was to draw a sequestered pistol and shoot your damned opponent in the head. But if honour interfered or, as now, there was no such pistol to call on, the foremost rule was to watch every inch of your opponent. Not just their eyes, or their arms, or the shuffle of their feet, but all of these at once. For there was no telling where the signal of a swordstroke would present itself -- a faint grimace, a too-deep breath, the flare of fingers on an off-paw -- and missing the tell could mean the difference between life and death. Nick caught himself staring for a moment at the silver tokens in the Blackwolf’s braids, and then scolded himself quietly.

_Don’t. You know it for a trick. And do not stare into his eyes, either; the eyes will lead you false. Watch carefully. Watch for-_

He saw it as it happened, the foot separating from its shadow, and he weaved as Silas lunged and his blade rushed past Nick’s ear. It was an imprecise strike, and Nick knew that Silas was testing him, taking his measure, gauging his bladecraft, and he refused to give up any secrets unless the Blackwolf would pay for them with blood. He dodged the second stroke as well, equal in mediocrity to the first, and only when the third thrust came racing for his throat -- this one mean to carry off his life -- did he trap _Nihilo_ against his own blade. The mêlée halted as the combatants drew close, muzzles inches apart, their hot and fierce breath right in each other’s face, tiny reflections of themselves visible in one another’s dilated pupils.

They parted swiftly, and Silas went on the attack once more, aiming a salvo of vicious swipes at Nick’s head. He parried each one, but made no attempt at a counterstrike, perhaps because the Blackwolf moved with such speed that the gaps in his defence were fleeting, or for fear that the gaps threatened to turn into counters of their own. The barrage halted once more when Nick crossed his sword under an overhead swing and stopped it fast. Beyond the door, the crew looked on with leering grins and mock cheers, confidant the prisoner was embroiled in a duel he couldn’t hope to win. And just a few -- three, maybe four -- wore no discernible expression, carefully watching the fox’s movements.

Silas, the greater in height and brawn, was all but standing over Nick, but the fox, through skill and strength, kept Silas from sliding or angling _Nihilo’s_ tip near his face or throat. Silas, however, merely grinned and began to push against him, his veins swelling and standing out under his fur, his muscles bulging. At first Nick slid back, unable to check the Blackwolf’s overwhelming might, until it suddenly became apparent that he was purposefully moving hindward, letting Silas plough him back towards the boundary of the cell.

And then, just before he was trapped up against the sheer granite, he disentangled their blades and swiftly stepped to his right, putting Silas close to the wall. Now, the Blackwolf could mount no attack without finding his arm hampered by the adamant stone.

Nick snarled. He went on the offensive.

Silas was now fighting with his sword arm crossing his chest, and it was clear at once how burdensome this was. He began to yield ground, stepping back as Nick unleashed a ruthless flurry of cuts, thrusting from his shoulder rather than his waist. One of these slipped past Silas’ guard and caught him on the arm, laying open the flesh just above his wrist.

Silas let out a harsh bark, then crashed his blade into Nick’s and knocked it aside. Then he leaped wide to his left, seeking distance from the encumbrance of the wall. But Nick refused to let Silas’ superior strength gift him any advantage, and he chased the Blackwolf with edgewise steps, still levelling mercury-quick slashes at his torso. Silas was agile enough to dodge them, but only narrowly, and one fell close enough to split the fabric of his vest.

Then something flashed at Nick’s face -- Silas’ left paw -- and caught him under the muzzle, throwing him backwards with force so great that his bootheels left the ground. Nick recovered his footing quickly and raised his blade again, but Silas did not pursue him, and instead stared at him with psychotic malice swimming in his eyes. The pirates in the darkness beyond the door could all see the red smear on the Blackwolf’s wrist, and a strained silence fell upon the crowd as it dawned on all, the fast and slow-witted alike, that these two mammals were evenly match.

“Good, Nick,” Silas said, pacing slowly from side to side. “Very good. Tally the hours you’ve spent with steel in paw and know they have not been wasted. It might even please you to know that you’re a finer sword than your father ever was. But do you really think you’re good enough to best me? Are you starting to believe that?”

Nick wasn’t listening. His eyes were on his foe, but he was placing himself in the room with details in his peripheral vision. A white smudge to his left, his father’s shrouded body. A torch directly behind Silas, making of him a black spectre with an infernal aura. He knew where he was. He knew where he needed to step.

But it was still too early. Silas was tiring, but not tired; furious, but still in sufficient control of his faculties. When the moment came, Nick wanted him blind with hate and slow with exhaustion. If he wasn’t, if he misjudged, then he would fail. Nick tightened his grip on his blade.

_Can do it? Can you hold fast?_ he thought.

_Do you care enough for the ones you love?_

_Do you want to live?_

A blur -- Silas rushing forward once more with unreal speed, sword in both paws and aiming to open Nick’s bowels; if the Blackwolf had ever hoped to win this duel with Nick’s life intact, the better to visit future tortures upon him, it was forgotten now. The Hunt had claimed him; he wanted blood and no substitute. Nick arched his back like a circus acrobat, and the blade touched nothing but air. Then it came rushing back at him from the left, and he managed to block it just in time. The force ran through his sword and into his arm, all the way to the small of his spine. He grunted, straining to absorb the force; they were like blows from a quarry-hammer.

Nick was too slow to stop the next swipe -- it came upon him from an angle he barely saw -- and he felt a cold sting as Silas struck him on the shoulder. Nimbly Nick retreated, creating enough space to forestall a third strike. He could feel warm blood welling in the cut and running down his chest, but he didn’t dare to look. His eyes were on Silas. On the flaring bores of his nostrils, the cord of saliva dangling from his lip. The smell of fox-blood was in the air, and it was burning up the Blackwolf from inside.

_Hold fast!_

Another three cuts, Silas growling on the delivery of each, a growl that became a roar as Nick danced around all in turn. Silas was drawing back for a fourth blow, one strong enough to sever neck and spine at once, when Nick spun, turning his back on the wolf, and flashed his tail in his face. A foolish gambit, and a good way to lose a tail, or worse. But it brought Nick a lapse just long enough to sink his blade into Silas’ thigh.

Nick could tell at once it was a deep cut as blood spurted and ran down his blade. But he brought it at a price; Silas lay a second cut on Nick’s shoulder, just below the first, and was looking to make it three when Nick managed to tug _Renascitur_ out of the wolf’s leg and scuttle backward, hissing through clenched teeth.

They stood apart, gasping for air. Blood was running freely down Silas’ breeches, dribbling on the floor and draining into his boot. His leg was bent under his weight. It was shaking.

Nick’s arm felt like it was on fire. He could hear Silas’ crew now screaming from beyond the door, but to him world sounded as it does underwater, muted and vague. One thing, however, could be heard rising above the clamour; a command, chanted in unison -- “Kill him!”

Silas broke the pause and charged, but he was significantly slower on his crippled leg. He seemed beyond noticing, though, reduced to a single savage impulse by pain and hate and the stink of blood in the cool air. Howling, he raged upon Nick like a storm, like some apocalyptic tempest. Nick was in full retreat now, his injured left arm tucked up against his chest, desperately putting _Renascitur_ between him and Silas’ fury, fighting to avoid stumbling over his own feet as he stepped backward. The wolf’s mouth was hanging open now, as if he were ready to cast _Nihilo_ aside and use his fangs instead. He drove at Nick again. Sparks flew. Nick stumbled. Silas lunged forward.

And he lunged on his wounded leg. And his foot found a broken flagstone. It shifted under his weight. He tripped.

Nick knew it was coming. A response not just predicted, but engineered.

Nick raised _Renascitur_ above his head. He could feel the torque of the swordblow building in his back, in his shoulder, travelling through the gears of his muscles and up into his wrist. He could feel the mounting inertia of the stroke, its escalating potency, as his blade arced over and began its downward course.

Silas’ eyes grew wide. He raised a desperate arm, putting his left paw in the path of the blade -- willing, it seemed, to buy a few more seconds of life at the expense of a mangled palm, an arm split to the elbow. Or maybe he thought he could still win this fight with just one paw, with blood pumping from ruptured veins and shock’s chains of ice tightening around his heart. Maybe he thought, still, that he was certain to win this duel.

He was mistaken. Death was moments away. _Renascitur_ came downward. Whistled, parting the air. This was the moment. This was it.

Then Silas’ arm moved inside the sweep of Nick’s blade, and as it rushed down he slapped the flat of the sword with his forearm, averting the blade from his exposed throat. _Renascitur’s_ incredible sharpness still wrought its damage; its edge caught flesh and scribed a red crescent down the length of Silas’ arm, deep enough to touch bone. Blood began to gush from under the loose flap of skin.

But it was no mortal blow.

Nick was shocked. He began to turn his wrist; Silas’ left flank was open, and if he could land a blow on the wolf’s liver, and if-

_Nihilo’s_ guard came rushing at his face. It struck Nick right on the muzzle. Short and sharp, a pugilist’s jab. Blinding pain wracked his head, seared his sinuses. His vision was shattered by rippling while blooms. Pain taken shape. He reeled.

And as he reeled, Silas reached out with his swordtip, and caught it under _Renascitur’s_ guard. Nick felt a surge of pain as the sword was wrenched out of his grip. It fell and landed somewhere far away. The force made Nick stumble, his left leg going out from under him, and he landed on his shoulder, sprawled out on the flagstones. He looked out and saw blood pooling under his paw. Something lay further beyond. It looked like a copper slug. It was one of his fingers.

Silas was sucking in great breaths, staggering on his wounded leg. He looked to his arm; blood was running through his fur and dribbling off the point of his elbow. He snarled and gave his arm a flick, painting an arc on the floor in red drops.

“Ah!” he breathed, his voice hoarse with fatigue, broken by his fatigued breathing. “Ah. Hah. It’s been a long time - since someone cut me - this deeply.” He turned to look at Nick, who had drawn up on his paws and knees. He was looking around. Looking for his dropped sword. He tasted blood and was befuddled for a moment -- _What’s this on my tongue?_ \-- before it occurred that he’d pressed his cheek to his shoulder, and it was his own blood on his lips, sharp and metallic. He saw _Renascitur,_ but it was far away, and Silas was standing between him and it, and then the wolf was coming closer, dragging his wounded leg, trailing a red wake.

“Look up, Nick,” Silas said. “Look at me. You owe me something.”

Nick stared unblinking at the bloody ground beneath him, frozen fast by disbelief and mounting terror. A child’s strange logic took hold, a willingness to trust in fantasy. Plans began to form. Leap to your feet, Nick. Step past him, run by him. Get your sword. But his legs felt numb, and his shoulder was aflame, and his paw, his right paw… _Saints, he cut my fucking finger off!_ The world began to crumble around him, and above it all rose one thought, the chilling reality, echoing over and over in his head.

_You failed, Nick. You lost. You failed her._ _You failed._

Then suddenly, _Nihilo_ was hovering just under Nick’s chin. He looked up into those yellow eyes; the madness that had raged there like a wildfire was gone, burned up, and cold malice was all that remained. Silas smiled.

“Remember, Nick,” he said softly. “There’s always a second chance.”

Then he cut out Nick’s eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank's for weathering my absence so stoutly! I mean...you didn't have a choice...and you all have lives and whatnot...
> 
> I promise I haven't done this to Nick out of sadism. I've read that Zootopia fiction before, authors attempting to take shortcuts to an emotional reaction by killing a character I appreciate and love. I hate it. It's lazy and undisciplined. But here I am with soiled hands myself, so I feel like I should offer a rationalization.
> 
> For one thing, you now know for certain that this is a story where the characters are at risk. That's going to be important going forward; these pair aren't done with facing down peril, not by a long shot, and I wouldn't want you to get bored thinking everything would bounce off their plot armour. Of course, there's more to a fulfilling story than that; unresolved intrigues, for a start, and character's using their wits to escape problems, as well. Things would get dry if the only complications were of a sword-wielding nature.
> 
> Two, Nick didn't soak up damage just for the hell of it. Part of it was to escalate the stakes in this chapter by itself. But he's not just sporting a red hole where his eye used to be, and shy one finger on his right, so we feel sorry every time we have to look at him. Those injuries will have significance later. Clever clogs will be remembering that Judy once looked into a beggar-fox's blind eyes and wondered if she was staring into a future her paw was shaping. Well that sad portent has come true, and what effect do you imagine that would have when -- if -- they're ever reunited. And the missing finger? Man's gotta keep a few secrets to himself.
> 
> Oh, and three -- it's a pirate story, for crying out loud! Of course there was going to be eye-patches!


	15. Thank You

Judith sat bolt upright in her bed, her paws clamped over her mouth to silence a horrified shriek. Nightmares had become frequent visitors to her hours of sleep. They arrived in all manner of substance and intensity, plaguing her from the moment she passed from consciousness to the moment she burst back into it, her lungs surging and her heartbeat screaming in her ears. Not even the most powerful sleeping tonic from amongst Dreyfus’ surgical supplies could do more than blunt their edge, and slightly at that.

Nick was a frequent tenant of these dreadful dreamworlds. Sometimes, it was just his mutilated body, floating facedown in the ocean. Sometimes, it was his likeness fading into the shadows, until he was but two green glints that were shortly snuffed out. Or the very worst -- him appearing in the bed beside her, holding her in his arms and whispering comforts in her ear, consolations in her ear, words of boundless love in her ear, only to vanish when she was thrust back into the waking world, where Nick existed no longer.

This night, however, she had been aboard the _Tribunal_ , and the whole thing was wreathed in flame like the funeral pyre of some ancient fabled king. There was a terrible cacophony issuing from somewhere amidst the inferno, cries so loud and persistent that they were audible even above the terrific din of the roaring fire. She knew it for a swine’s squeal, for hundreds of hogs going to their deaths blistered and charred, their fat boiling under their skin. Except, when a retinue of dark shapes began to emerge from the conflagration and approach her, slow and tottering, numb with their own imminent deaths, she saw they were mammals under her command, wearing Zoohaven colours.

She gripped the bedlinen and cursed that the mind never seemed to have true mastery of the body -- she knew there was no benefit in fear-spurred breath and pulse, in feeling sick with dread. Still, it was a long while before she calmed and felt well enough to leave her bed and glance out the window, where she reckoned it sometime in the early morning, with a good number of hours yet before sunrise. She crossed the room to the dresser, picked up Dreyfus’ tonic, and swirled its frankly unpalatable contents, hesitant to put the black medicine near her tongue. Then she looked back at the bed, its sheets madly knotted, the pillows strewn around as though some frantic battle had been fought there, and she decided she’d rather face the day on what rest she had rather than weather a second bout of nightmares. With weary grumbling, she went to her table, lit a candlestub sitting in a shallow silver dish, and set her mind back upon the legion of problems that gnawed at this increasingly hopeless endeavour.

The repair and resupply of the _Invulnerable_ was almost complete, but the cost had been steep, and once they settled their accounts with the dockmaster the treasury would be nearly exhausted. If she wished to avoid confrontation with Tor-Kropa’s mechanisms of justice, she would need to give the command to set sail within four days. And she still had no notion of where they should sail next. There was nowhere that would grant them a kinder reception. There was nowhere they might dredge up intelligence on the Blackwolf’s location. And there was no way, by the Saints themselves, that she would turn tail and run home with nothing to report but failure and waste.

She was wanting for support on that decision. Beck’s sole counsel was in making for Zooport and returning with reinforcements, admission of failure be damned. Harley, clever but rash, wanted to lead a retinue into the city and scout for information, although he drew blanks on where best to look and what for. She’d even allowed stout Riley a say; the best he could manage was that he was willing to forsake food and comfort if it gave them a second shot at the _Predator,_ which it would not. She was alone.

She tried to imagine Nick, sitting across the table from her, and what rascal advice he’d provide, and what invective he’d heap upon the suggestions of her other officers.

_King and Admiralty ordered her to return with Silas in chains, but returning with a missing ship and a list of casualties is just as good, isn’t it?_

_You, Harley, want to play at being a spy? You, with the loudest mouth from here to the arse-end of Ja’kar?_

_Aye, Riley. You forsake dinner and start whipping yourself. And get praying while you’re at it; maybe one of the Saints will descend from on high in a column of heavenly light and fart the answer in our faces._

She smirked, and let Nick’s imaginary company linger a moment longer, to look into her eyes and say something charming or foolish, and she didn’t care which so long as it was his voice. It was a child’s game to pretend that she wasn’t alone in here, to imagine that somehow the fox was still there to offer guidance and comfort, but it bought her a moment’s peace, and something that tasted like happiness. She daren’t let the phantom remain, however, and she looked hard at the vacant seat at her table and told herself there was nothing but empty air.

And then she realised what she was staring at through the vacuity; the map-drawer, standing on the far side of the room. Her fingers drummed the tabletop as her mind began to mill over possibilities. Maps were just illustrations of a real world, and it stood to reason that somewhere on one of those charts was a point that marked the location of their quarry. It might bear no name, but it was there. She had nothing to go on, however, not even a hint as to where she might start looking for this proverbial needle in the haystack. And still…

“Well,” she muttered, picking up the candlepan and walking to the drawer, “it can’t hurt to try, can it?”

The maps, all borrowed from the royal cartographers at her request, were organised by region, and as per Nick’s advice, she’d taken as many as they’d allow her, which amounted to a decent percentage of the charted world. She hunted by candlelight for those that showed the Berseisian coast and the surrounding Latara, then bundled them up and lay them out on her quarter’s floor. With some fussing, she managed to light the chandelier without needing to call for assistance, and with the room properly illuminated, she began to sort over what she had.

At first, she hunted for the newest map, finding it by the sheen of its paper, and rolled it out to survey the daubs of coloured ink that marked land and sea. This one showed everything from the Trueno Strait, which marked the northmost boundary of Sansora, to Bersei’s far north, the Whitewastes, which vanished into uncharted and unchartable oblivion. Starting there, she began to trace her way southward, looking at the islands that dotted Bersei’s coastline, their names harsh and foreign, all bearing the same prefix: Tor-Neva, Tor-Kahtra, Tor-Libstvennitch. Any one of these could be Silas’ refuge, but she thought it might stand out for some geographical feature, a sheltered cove or a nearby freshwater lake. She began to place coloured tokens over possible candidates.

An hour later, she brushed her sizeable accumulation of tokens away and put her head in her open paws. All she had gained was a brain stuffed full of outlandish names; far too many, and no reliable way to narrow down which might harbour Silas’ secret port. And that was assuming the Blackwolf even dropped anchor on an island, which she had largely assumed because it seemed to make sense; what better way to keep your comings and goings safe from prying eyes. But what about the Blackwolf ever added up to sense?

She stood up over her chart, with its sea of rumblines and bearings and the misused effort of colour and ornament, the icons of mythic beasts and proud royal flags staked in claimed territories. She closed her eyes. _You need to be smarter than this, Judith,_ she told herself. _If it were easy, someone would have tracked him down long ago_.

As she started again, she began to puzzle over one feature of the Blackwolf’s history that had always chafed her sense of reason. For fifteen years, he’d ridden wind and wave across the Latara, sacking villages and spilling blood where he saw fit, and in all this time not a soul had seen him or his ship and lived to breathe a word about it. Very well. Allow that he was exceptionally crafty. Allow he had spies that kept him one step ahead of all the nations’ instruments of justice. Allow that death was the only passage out of his crew, for none can read the secrets on dead tongues. It seemed absurd that these alone should be sufficient to guard a bloody marauder for fifteen years, without also allowing that he was receiving protection from some other source.

Bersei, like many nations, divided the labour of its administration amongst a number of provinces; a large number, at that, for Bersei was vast, and much of it wild and snow-buried. The provincial lords, provided they disbursed tax and tribute back to the capital, and never courted treachery against the crown, were largely free to govern as they saw fit. But you could only get so rich draining money from peasant farmers or scratching for tin and nickel in mines amidst the frozen mountains. It would be a good strategy to promise safe port to a gang of bandits and keep this agreement secret, provided they never struck at your own ships, and agreed to part with a decent percentage of their loot.

 _But a lord couldn’t do more than that,_ Judith thought. _Not without drawing too much attention. He couldn’t send militia to their aid or purloin naval ships as escorts for them. The Blackwolf would still be responsible for his own defence. He’d need somewhere hidden…and fortified._

She gathered her tokens again and began to lay them down once more, this time along the coast, granting a wide berth to cities, towns and forts where soldiers might be garrisoned, and favouring any location that looked like a small force could hold it under siege.

A grey light was announcing a new day by the time she realised that, again, she had more tokens than could be handled, and she got to her feet with a frustrated snarl. Pacing back and forth across the room, desperately warding off the thought that this was all wasted effort, Judith started pondering what possible ways she could focus this list. What angle she was missing…

The idea sprang upon her so fast it near jolted her off her feet, and she rushed to her pile of spare maps to sort for something specific. She found it, curling at the edges and sepia with age -- a map of Bersei’s coast from a time long before her memory. Words at its margins declared it a copy of a military chart from more than half a century ago, and she assumed the royal cartographers had kept it for its historical significance rather than for any modern utility. She was glad they had, though; it was exactly what she needed.

The map went down next to her first, and laid side by side the differences were apparent. There were similarities, of course; Bersei’s capital hadn’t moved in hundreds of years, and the original mapmaker had interpreted the details of the coast with remarkable fidelity. But there were cities and strongholds whose names had changed over the years. And there were some that, according to the newer intelligence, had vanished altogether. Amongst these were a number of Berseisian forts, discernible because of their names -- the Bersesian prefix for fort was ‘Krak’ -- and their ramparted icons.

Just two of these were perched on the coastline. One was Krak-Ovskarod -- of no use to the Blackwolf, for it was only half a day’s travel from the city of Roshavyn.

The other sat on a lonely peninsula in the south, with nothing of interest for miles around. Krak-Kavar

She stared at it for a long time. The morning sun came through the window and brushed her face with golden fingers, catching on a single tear that trickled down her cheek and into the corner of her smiling lips.

“Thank you, Nick,” she whispered.

Then she brushed the tear away and resolved to shed no more. She knew what needed to be done.

Bury the fox.

Seize the wolf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was nice to write a chapter that wasn't emotionally numbing for once. Perhaps I need to write some silly hijinks for Fluff Pieces, so my heart doesn't shrivel up into a sliver of flint and cut me from the inside.
> 
> I don't think the author often owes an explanation to the reader, but a particular topic came up in a few different conversations recently, and I realised it was calling my conduct into question. So -- why was I so mean to Nick? And by that I mean all at once; why have a string of chapters where we discover that his comrade is going to be sold to butchers, that Silas has the drop on Judith, that his dad is dead and Silas killed him, and then take his bloody eye into the bargain? The answer is this chapter; it seemed wrong to introduce that Judith had any wisp of a plan to find where the fortress is while those other events were playing out, because a lot of the drama of the last chapters rested on Nick dueling his way out of the predicament being the only thing that could possibly save him. It wasn't my intention to string a bunch of tragedies together, and if I had the time, this would be high on my list of things to fix. But what's done is done, and you cant spend forever looking for mistakes to obsess over.
> 
> That said, for those of you who were waiting for the narrative to turn...well, maybe this is your moment. Updates will be a tiny bit slower than usual; I am far too busy at work these days to keep a weekly schedule. But I'll certainly endevour to keep it bi-weekly, and the quality up where you expect it.
> 
> See you all in a fortnight!


	16. We're Going to Need a Coconut

 

The group of priests walked slowly, heads bowed solemnly, their faces hidden by the threadbare hoods of their threadbare robes. The leading devotee swung a censer before him, trailing a reeking billow of pungent incense, and the one beside him held out an almsbowl in which rattled a pittance of copper coins. The six priests in tow merely clasped their ragged sleeves to their chests, kept their eyes on the ground, and said nothing -- never so much as a mutter.

The Quiet Brotherhood was bound by the dictum that any words spent on subjects other than theology were wasted, and that waste was gravest sin. They carried out their daily mundanities -- cooking, eating, cleaning -- in perfect silence, and only deigned to speak in the cold halls of their monastery, or on the utterance of blessings in the street. There was a place for this austere religion in Tor-Kropa; one redeeming quality of cupiditous capitalism was its frequent tolerance of varied beliefs. There was a place for it, but it was far below the station of other highpriests and pontiffs and theocrats, mammals with gilded temples and immense tithes, whose true pursuit was gold, not godliness. Which was how these wretches in their sackcloth garments came to walk the ugly back roads, where all manner of venal commerce took place, where gold was traded for sellswords, prostitutes, and miscellaneous contraband. Still, despite the danger and the reek of blasphemy, they walked slowly, taking their time.

That is, until they left the street and came upon a dark and narrow alley, into which they sprung, wrestled off their robes, and stuffed them into a brace of canvas bags. Now dressed like common civilians, this group of not-priests made their way across the city square, down the steps to the port, and out to the dock where the _Invulnerable_ was moored.

Beck was there to greet them, his stern brow hiding a twinge of nervousness. “Good to see you back safe, Harley,” he muttered. “Did you get what we need?”

“I certainly hope so,” Harley replied.

“You weren’t spotted or followed?”

Lars’ face wrinkled, the scar tissue around his eye wrinkling doubly so. “I’d hate to meet the mammal who could walk in that fog of stinking bloody smoke,” he said sourly. “Reeks to high heaven, it does.”

Harley frowned at him. “We weren’t,” he clarified.

“Good,” said Beck, urging them to the gangplank with a wave of his arm. “To the commodore’s chambers with you, then. She’ll want to know what you’ve found out.”

 

 

“The word of Zoohaven ships in the harbour is all over town,” Harley said, looking about at the officers assembled for this council of strategy. “We had ears in the guard’s barracks, the financial district, the marketplace -- there’s not a single place that wants for someone guessing out loud what the Zoohaven navy is doing on Tor-Kropa’s shores.”

“I don’t suppose our story about being a harmless diplomatic envoy was amongst them?” Judith asked.

“Uh…not really. The favoured gossip is that we’re a scouting force laying the groundwork for a complete Zoohaven takeover of the island.”

Judith smirked. “The mammals who live here don’t have the faintest idea how military engagements are conducted, I suppose. Well, at the very least, we’ve discovered how far we can trust our good friend sir Tuskovitch.”

“Yeah, about as far as you can throw him,” Lar sneered. “I bet that heaving leathersack couldn’t wait to go and squeal in the ears of his superiors.”

“He’s only a pawn in all this,” Judith said. “And word of our landing here was going to slip out, one way or another. The real problem still lies with those who truly hold power here -- the members of the Council, up there in their golden halls. If we don’t do something about them, we’ll be lost, every last one of us.”

A few of her officers exchanged nervous glances, and all leaned forward to hear what she meant by this.

“I read up on the history, just this morning,” Judith explained. “Tor-Kropa is an oddity; it has been a self-governing entity for hundreds of years, ever since the Rukatova family seized the throne and renamed the capital in their own honour. The Berseisan Duma claims it is a satellite state; Tor-Kropa’s governing Council insist it is wholly independent. But in truth, Tor-Kropa is far more reliant on Bersei than it would ever admit. Tor-Kropa is a centre of commerce, and it ought to be an enticing target for all sorts of transgression: bandits, pirates, Sansoran expansion. They keep a standing militia, though not enough to repel a sufficiently aggressive attack. And yet here it is, reigning without fear of interference. How could that be, unless it was sure it had protection from somewhere else -- somewhere on the mainland?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s common knowledge,” Beck said, “but it’s hardly clandestine that Tor-Kropa has unwritten pacts with Bersei. Of course, they would not be with the central government; more likely, with the provincial lords who govern the majority of the country.”

“Exactly,” Judith said. “Now, consider this: would it not make sense that the Blackwolf is likewise the beneficiary of such an agreement?”

For a moment, the room fell into hushed muttering as the officers processed the implications of this possibility. “We know”, said Beck finally, silencing the room, “that Silas has been hired by old allies of king Uthber to exact revenge against Porcinia and Zoohaven. But what you’re describing is the Blackwolf as a permeant privateer for some provincial Bersesian lord.”

“I know that sounds hard to believe,” Judith admitted. “That the Blackwolf is involved in any manner of working agreement, that he is more than a loose and feral beast. But as you reminded me, he is flesh and blood. And if I were flesh and blood, and in his position, I would want some solid assurance of protection from at least one capable guardian.”

 “Hold up,” Harley pleaded, his fingers pressed to his temples. “You’re saying that Tor-Kropa, the Blackwolf, and some pampered shit of a lord are all part of this one conspiracy. Well if that’s true, then someone on this island has certainly sent word to Silas that we’re here, right? I mean, he’s probably getting ready to set sail right now, if he hasn’t already!”

“He wouldn’t strike us openly while we’re harbouring here…would he?” Riley asked, a tremor in his throat. “I mean, if we stay-”

“We can’t bloody stay,” Harley groaned. “As it stands, our debts to the dockmaster have eaten our treasury down to crumbs. If we don’t make leave for the safety of Zooport, the Blackwolf will be free to pick us off where he chooses…”

“The commodore has already said we won’t return to the capital,” Riley replied hotly, and then quickly shut his mouth before he crossed the line into direct insubordination, while Harley was too engrossed in the hopeless tangle of the situation to chastise him. The eyes of all attendant fell back on their commodore. And all were surprised to see her smiling, as if this was a matter of supreme inconsequentiality.

“So be it,” she said dismissively. “It’s time we vacated anyway; Tor-Kropa might just be the least welcoming place any rabbit ever dared drop anchor. I’d happily just leave the lot of them to their sad little schemes.”

“And leave for where?” Beck asked.

Judith’s grin grew slightly cheeky, like a kit with a pocketful of stolen sweetcakes. “Zooport,” she said.

Some of the faces around the table fell; this, it seemed, was an admission of defeat. Riley in particular looked utterly ashen, miserable down to his very marrow. Beck was the only one who nodded sagely.

“I will do all I can,” he assured her, “to make certain the Admiralty does not look upon this as a failure, for it isn’t; it’s the right thing to do. So, we make to return with reinforcements?”

Judith shrugged. “Or we’re beaten curs running for home with our tails between our legs. It doesn’t bother me what the story is. So long as those wagging tongues pick up the news, and so long as one of them wags in Silas’ ear.”

A few mammals looked uncertainly at one another. Then, Harley’s mouth cracked into a grin. “A ruse?”

“Indeed. Our true destination is another matter entirely.”

At this, she slipped off her chair, walked to where her map sat innocuously atop a dresser, unrolled it across the table, and matter-of-factly explained exactly how she had come across this abandoned fort, and why she believed that, if they sailed there, they would find the _Predator_ , docked and unsuspecting. When she finished, the room was still, and her officers looked at one another, unable to tell if this was lunacy or genius. Beck, for once, had lost command of his words.

“Ju-Commodore. This…surely you can see how…this plan, it’s speculation at best, it’s fiction, it’s a gamble on bad odds…”

“It always was,” Judith said. “It was always going to be a long shot. The first time, the table was rigged, I’m certain. We bet high, and we lost dearly. And this will be a long shot, too. Maybe it is just the stuff of imagination. Maybe there’ll be nothing there but crumbling stone and empty halls. But…I want you to think what we stand to gain if it turns out I’m right. Tell me, truthfully; how badly do you want a shot at the Blackwolf on our own terms?”

Beck was silent. Dumbfounded. And then he smirked. The black beast churned and twisted behind his glittering eyes, and it roared for blood.

“More than anything else in the world,” he said quietly.

The room descended into an uproar, each and every mammal present ready to believe that this was it -- their true chance. Their commodore was ready and willing to bet her life on it, and so were they.

“Commodore,” Harley said, “ _Invulnerable_ and the _Seastorm_ will be fully provisioned by day break on the morrow. You say the word, and we’ll bring a fury upon that cur like he’s never known before in his life…”

But Judith shook her head. “No, Harley. There’ll be no blunt assault. Not this time. We brought a hammer against him once, and he broke head from haft. This time, we’ll be a knife in the darkness; assassins, quiet as mice. And when we’ve taken his sanctuary from him, and run him out into the cold, and when we’ve taken his ship and his crew and his hope, he will know that his debts are due.”

The room stood at attention, awaiting their orders.

“It’s eight days to the new moon, isn’t it? Then we’ll need to move quickly. Lars? Fetch the purser and ask him how many barrels of pitch we have. We’ll need enough to paint 40,000 square feet of canvas; go and purchase the deficit once you know our stores. Harley, how many cutters do we have? Three? We’re going to need two more. Samuel, you go with him and requisition six hundred feet of timber poles, and as much good quality rope as you can find.”

“We’ll see to it, commodore,” Harley said, rising from the table, “…although, purchases of this magnitude would eat right through what money we have left. There’s no possibility we can manage both this and our mooring fees, and Tuskovitch doesn’t seem the sort for reasonable parley…”

He stopped speaking when Judith let out a chuckle and waved away his concerns. “Believe it or not, Harley, you’ve already confirmed the cleverest way to deal with that vulgar swine. When you passed through the barracks in disguise, what did the guards number?”

“At least one hundred, commodore; there were fifty bunks per wing of the closest barracks…we’re…not planning an entrenched firefight on the docks, are we?”

“Nothing that severe; if all goes well, there won’t be so much as a shot fired in anger. Tuskovitch deserved a reprimand, but I see no need to take it in his blood, least of all the blood of his subordinates.”

She turned to the officers remaining, and said, “We’ll also need some things moved from the _Seastorm_ to the _Invulnerable_ \-- at least ten lamps, and…fifteen of the cannons. Fifteen ought to do. Well, to your business then!” They began to salute and exit, dedicated if somewhat confused. After all, what manner of plan called for such an esoteric assortment of items and activity?

Beck was making a study of her ancient map, his finger on the ramparted symbol that denoted Krak-Kavan. “If you’ve been reading up on Berseisian history, you’ll know their penchant for building iron-gated portcullises to guard their ships. I don’t think it wise to imagine the Blackwolf wouldn’t have kept such defences in working order. Do you have a plan to circumvent this?”

“As it turns out, I do,” Judith said cheerfully. “Although…who’s the smallest member of our crew?”

Beck thought for a moment. “The margay, Joshua. Although I’d hoped to commit that lack-spine to the thick of the fighting; he’s yet to atone for his rank cowardice.”

“He’s all yours,” Judith said. “He’s much too large for my purposes. We’re going to need someone much smaller -- Oh! Also…”

She turned to Riley, who was halfway out the door. “Riley! We’re going to need a coconut.”

Riley stared back blankly, before he hollered, “Aye, commodore! One coconut!”

Once the room had cleared, Judith turned back to Beck, who was staring at her in some bemusement, particularly given the nature of that last order. If he didn’t know better, he’d have guessed Judith was going utterly insane.

 “I suppose you’d appreciate an explanation of exactly what I’m planning,” she guessed. “Very well…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you were scratching your head at the name of the chapter, right?
> 
> As always, thanks for the comments and kudos!


	17. Departure

The guards caused something of a commotion storming down to the docks, weapons ready and loaded, their faces hidden behind the enclosure of their leather helms. It was rare that Tor-Kropa’s citizenry saw such a mobilisation; they rushed to clear a path for them, and on the platoon’s passing they fell into animated speculation about their ultimate purpose, many correctly guessing it had something to do with those foreign ships in the harbour. But nothing about this uncharacteristic scene was so surprising as the corpulent dockmaster leading the pack, matching its pace and even exceeding it, showing a fleetness that was wholly out of agreement with his ample physique.

Clearly, something had rather upset him.

Down on the dock, the weather had taken a nasty turn, and a blood-chilling wind sliced over the harbour, carrying flecks of ice that heralded a brewing snow. Judith, overseeing the last of the supplies to be stowed, was idly thinking about whether their rum supplies were sufficient to see out the coming cold, when she heard the guards’ commands to the public to make way, employing shoves and elbows if it wasn’t made fast enough. She spotted them at a distance and could see Tuskovitch at the forefront, puffing and heaving, his eyes all but invisible under the shadow of his furiously creased brow. She squinted and took a bite of the apple she was holding.

“Dey sheem shpirited,” she remarked to Beck, mouth full. “It mush be shomving in da morning air.”

“You seem in good humour,” Beck remarked, “for someone who’s about to be murdered. I hadn’t taken you for such a dry wit.”

She swallowed and smiled. “Well, I learned from the best. And come now; it’s not so brutal as all that. He’ll threaten to sling us all in jail at worst, I would wager.”

“I’d still caution taking great care, here,” Beck said. “The dockmaster might be a clown, but his soldiers’ steel bites as sharp as any. What if some intemperate pistol goes off and puts a ball in your skull?”

Judith seemed unconcerned. “I have every faith that our plan will proceed in a bloodless fashion, just as intended -- for their sake, as much as mine. But if something should go astray, and I fall in battle, see that they erect a statue in my honour back at Zooport. I want my valour in the face of ranting idiocy to be remembered.”

Beck managed to stopper a snort of laughter. “Learned from the best indeed. Here he comes…”

The platoon halted mere feet from Judith and Beck, standing several abreast, blocking any hope of escape towards the city. Whichever amongst them that had muskets, they were loaded, their hammers cocked, and every other spare paw rested on sword hilts in clear expectation of violence. Tuskovitch’s breath was hot and deep, like the labour of a furnace bellows, and he snorted as if he were trying to clear some obstruction from his throat. All the while, he stared murderous daggers at Judith, sharpened on the grindstone of his acerbic disposition.

“You _…_ ” he wheezed, “You wretched absconder _…_ you scoundrel. Rabbits. I was right to suspect…”

“And a good-day to you too, sir,” Judith said cheerfully. “I see you take your morning walk in robust company; is there any particular reason you’ve invited such a multitude to come and greet us?”

Tuskovitch managed to shake off his breathlessness, and his formidable anger began to surge upward, like some terrific brushfire that could raze whole forests. “You wouldn’t say it to my face, would you?!” he bellowed. “As a mammal of substance would, huh?! I hear it instead from my deputy that you wart-arsed Zoohaven curs plan to weigh anchor at daybreak and leave your debts of accommodation upon my ledger?”

“Well, I’ve never found much gain in chewing the grain from the gossip mill,” Judith said, “but on this occasion it’s true; we are called back to our homeport, and what money we had has gone to provisions to see we make that journey in comfort -- like these gorgeously ripe apples here.” She gestured at the bushels of red fruit being carried aboard the _Invulnerable._ “Given your sizeable down-payment, and that the happiness of my crew is of far greater importance to me than the weight of your purse, I’m sure you can understand why I wouldn’t throw so much as an extra lionsmile your way. I would have informed you, but I’m inclined to imagine you would have refused these terms, obese larcenist that you are, so there was hardly any point, was there?”

If Tuskovitch’s anger was a growing flame, Judith’s tone was a gallon of fuel hurled right upon it, and then a gallon more. His eyes seemed to pop right out of their sockets, like some goggling, air-poisoned fish, scarcely able to believe the rank disobedience they were witness to.

“Who do you think you are?!” he shrieked, strands of saliva quivering between his teeth like plucked lutestrings. “You imagine you can just scamper away, like some greased rat, and hide back in whatever hole you clambered out of?! You’re fucking delusional, you are! Your ships will go to auction to cover your debts, and you’ll be too busy rotting in a cell to need them, you and your whole lice-bitten crew!” At this, he turned to his nearest guard and spat, “Gavriil! Seize them!”

Tuskovitch’s soldiers had readied their weapons at once in expectation of a show of force, and those who did not reach for shackles or binding rope raised sword or musket and eyed the Zoohaven sailors through pitiless glares. The Zoohaven crew labouring to load the _Invulnerable_ halted all work at this, frozen in postures of surrender as they stared down the opposition’s gunbores, none moving so much as a muscle. 

They simply watched.

As a full half of Tuskovitch’s guard suddenly turned upon the other.

The turncoats knocked swords out of paws and feet off the ground, or used their musket-stocks to bludgeon their betrayed comrades into submission or unconsciousness, whichever came first. They moved with such brutal speed that not a single trigger was pulled, not a single shot fired in retaliation.

Tuskovitch turned and gapped at the chaos around him, when suddenly a balled fist crashed into his jaw and spun him like a top, rattling his senses and teeth alike. He almost fell onto his face before the same fist grabbed him by the tusk and wrenched him to his feet, while someone to his left put a cutlass to his throat. The guard with the blade at his neck, Gavriil, drew off his helm and leaned in close, putting his muzzle right against Tuskovitch’s ear. Except it was no wolf’s muzzle, but instead a leopard’s.

“This is why,” Harley hissed, “it always pays to know the soldiers under your charge.”

Tuskvovitch stared at the leopard with something more complete than base fear -- the terror of a mammal who, his whole life gone, had felt secure against the possibility of brute threat. He averted his gaze to the right, and only beheld Lars’ own battle-scared eye leering at him with every intention to do murder if Judith commanded it.

Judith walked towards him slowly, tossing and catching her part-eaten apple as she went, holding this pitiful bureaucrat in her level and unwavering stare. Tuskovitch’s eyes were shut, as if he hoped to close off the world where all his power had been taken and turned against him, and to substitute some better conditions in their stead. Judith sneered at him, and felt not the faintest stab of pity, least of all at the trickle of blood Harley’s blade had drawn that beaded on the bloated fat of his neck.

“Did all go according to plan?” she asked Harley.

“Not a single death, Commodore,” Harley stated proudly. “Although, there’s a barracks bunkroom where fifty-odd guards are bound with rope and gagged with hessian and, I dare say, their pride wounded quite beyond recovery.”

Judith smiled, and looked past her first lieutenant to the startled and nervous loyalists who were bewildered by their unexpected defeat, many anticipating that they would be shortly dispatched and hurled into the ocean. They deserved to be set at ease, she decided.

“Brave soldiers of Tor-Kropa,” she began, her oration loud and resonant even on that open pier, “you are wholly beaten, and fear for your lives. But know that Zoohaven does not raise thoughtless killers to any station, least of all to captaincy, and you will be spared further harm. You will walk away from here…as messengers.

“Leave your weapons, and take up instead your injured brethren, and return to the places from whence you came. And when you return there, and an account of your desertion is demanded, you will say this: the daughters and sons of Zoohaven are no sort to shoulder trespass or insult, and so we throw you off. And you will say this, too: our memory is long, and our grudges do not wipe away. Commodore Judith Hopps and the ships under her command depart for Zooport.”

With that final edict, her band of imposters let go the scruffs of necks they had been holding and, weapons still levelled in superfluous enforcement, the beaten guards picked up the fallen amongst them and began to do just as they were ordered.

And that left just the dockmaster, whose whimpers were beginning to grate on Judith.

“Now what to do with you, noble sir?” Judith asked, and Tuskovitch’s eyes blew open in fear and panic.

“You wouldn’t dare,” he blubbered. “You wouldn’t dare kill me. The Council will make you pay dearly -- so dearly, you have no idea -- for the ingratitude and lawlessness you’ve dared already. Lay my body at their feet as well, and you’ll be beyond any mercy.”

Judith narrowed her eyes, and then burst into laughter, bending double and slapping her rump as if this were a jape of grandest absurdity. Tuskovitch, understandably, was confused.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Judith chuckled, wiping a tear from her eye. “Oh Saints, what did you take us for? Butchers? I’ve no interest in meting out such punishments for trivial infractions -- and at any rate, I couldn’t spare the week it would take for my crew to saw through your bulk and see it done.”

Even now, sharp steel held against his pulsing jugular, Tuskovitch wished to bristle at the insult -- it was in his nature, part of his very being. But he did not. Could not. He was looking into Judith’s stare, and even through her smile, he could see a cold capability to wreak absolute justice, and it throttled him with fear.

“There is in you, sir, all the very worst things in this world,” she said softly. “In you, and in the fatted barons who reign on this worthless mound of salt and slate. For there are monsters out there who are crueller than you, and falser than you, and possessed of greater greed and wrath than you. But those monsters could never climb to such dizzying heights if they didn’t have the rungs of your indifference to step on.”

Tuskovitch opened his mouth -- to blubber and plead his case, perhaps. None would ever know, for at that moment Judith tossed her apple at Lars, who snatched it out of the air and, with a grin of pure relish, stuffed it right between the hog’s drooping chops.

“You won’t die here,” Judith continued, uninterrupted. “Not at the point of any Zoohaven blade. But there will come a time when you, and all your hollow brethren, are brought to account. And on the shore of that distant morning, perhaps you’ll wish you had.”

She turned to Harley, who was waiting on what exactly they planned to do with this worthless swine.

“If my memory serves me correctly,” she said, “you expressed a desire to…what was it? Shove his fat arse off the dock? Well, I think you deserve to get your wish.”

 

 

By the time the sun was hours high, the _Invulnerable_ and the _Seastorm_ were far from the coast and growing ever smaller, bound for, as far as anyone suspected, the bosom of their mother country. This impelled a stir in Tor-Kropa -- or, rather, several stirs in several places.

A stir on the harbourside, where the stevedores and sailors and other mammals of business, many of whom had directly witnessed the rout of the Tor-Kropan guards, watched in mystified stupor as the felons sailed clean away.

A stir in the eastern wing of the barracks, where one drowsy watchmammal, returning from his late vigilance, thought himself dreaming when he blundered in upon some fifty guards, all naked save their smallclothes, all rolling about on the floor in various attitudes of helplessness, arms bound behind their backs, wailing muted wails into their gags.

A stir -- a true stir, at that; a whirlpool to swallow all other stirs -- in the halls of the Council, where word of the Zoohaven departure and destination incited panic and fury, and necessitated the hasty scribbling and dispatch of several letters, one of which would find its way to a bleak fortress on Bersei’s cold and empty southern coast.

For one day, Judith Hopps was the sole topic of everyone’s interest.

There was, however, one mammal who found relative peace that day, albeit through no intention of his own -- Tuskovitch, wedged into a barrel anchored to the dock via rope, unable to do so much as squeal in protest thanks to the apple wedged in his blubbery snout. There was nothing for him to do but to buck in the gentle chop and watch the two ships make their escape, and there he stayed until the late hours of that cold day when he was finally discovered, long after the Zoohaven sails had vanished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usually, my update schedule will be 10-11 days -- alternating Fridays and Mondays. But once I'm happy with a chapter, I see no reason not to scoot it out the door early. And this was a fun one to write (Hah! Fun. I remember that stuff)
> 
> I haven't got much to say about this chapter, besides that I'm kind of happy to be clear of the whole Tor-Kropa arc. It wasn't in my original plan, and was added in after I realised there needed to be a plausible elapse of time for Nick's story to run its course. That left me in a bit of a panic, since I was writing a lot of it off the cuff, but it manages to tie in with enough of the developing themes to feel necessary beyond its narrative expediency. It's also lovely to write a happy Judith again; I'll have to see what I can do about having her company more often.
> 
> By the way, if you care to, I'd like to set you all a homework assignment: find an author you really like, and leave a comment on a story they wrote long ago. Nothing brings a smile to your face, and a whole cartload of new motivation for the craft, like someone engaging with a story you'd almost forgotten about.


	18. Cowardice

Nick sat slumped against his cell wall, staring at his damaged paw through his damaged vision. Half of his world -- everything left of his snout -- had fallen into impenetrable shadow, and what remained seemed, he swore, darker than before. Faintly blurred. Closing in around him.

Nick knew that it wasn’t the world hadn’t changed, of course. It was him. Only him. The world was just as he had left it, just as it ought to be. The tricks were all in his sundered perception.

This was no comfort to the one missing the eye.

Nick leaned back against the wall and sighed, his breath steaming like sulphurous fumaroles in the freezing air. _There’s always a second chance_ , Silas had said, and those words ran a circuit in Nick’s mind, travelling around ceaselessly and tauntingly. Because it wasn’t true. There would be no second chance. How by Saints was he supposed to best the Blackwolf in this state? When he could misjudge by whole inches his finger’s distance from something; when he wasn’t even certain he could hold a sword straight any longer; when his will to succeed, whatever thin trickle that had ever been, was dried up and vanished completely.

No. He was finished. Silas had beaten him, and on fair terms at that. He’d never be fit to rise against the wolf again. Even his quiet and modest hope that, somewhere far away, Judith would escape the wrath of the Blackwolf, and of all the traitors amidst the Zoohaven ranks who’d first given him her scent, was all but extinguished. She would -- he felt this as solid a truth as the cold stone under his feet -- fall under his blade.

And he could do nothing to stop it. His fate was to lie here, wallowing in his own futility, rotting right beside his father.

He turned to his right to look upon the sad, lumpen shape of John Wilde, his dry and crumbling flesh still hidden under a shroud. Nick reached out and touched him gently on the brow with the two fingers he had left, feeling for the shape of his face underneath, grotesque and monstrous, but as true a picture of the fox as he would ever have.

It suddenly dawned on him that John Wilde had achieved something remarkable with his last sorry breaths. He had, in his own way, beaten Silas; at least, he had denied the Blackwolf his desire, had deprived him the opportunity to gloat over John’s complete abasement.

 _And myself?_ Nick thought bitterly. _Charging at him, waving a sword about like some ironclad fairytale hero? Giving the wolf exactly what he wanted, because for all my supposed fox cunning, I’m too dim to play things any other way? You’re an utter fool, no better than those imbeciles spouting their nonsense about slapping irons around Silas’ wrists and dragging him before a judge to face civilised punishment…_

The trudge of multiple footsteps and the rattle of keys broke into his thoughts, and he snatched his paw away from his father and buried it in his lap, staring with rancour at the dark shapes moving behind the cell bars. When the door opened, however, it was no wolf who entered, but the stunted figure of the pangolin, Scaleton. He looked just as poorly as the first time Nick had spied him, his eyes tired and rheumy, the threads of his befouled suit unravelling at the seams.

“I’ll call for you when I am done,” Scaleton addressed the guards, but his escort had already locked the door and disappeared, seeming to care very little if the pangolin kept his other appointments, whatever those might be. He sighed and shuffled over to Nick, dragging his battered bag of medical supplies with him.

Nick knew, from the bandages and ointment on his body, this was not the first time Scaleton had been down to treat his infirmities, although he had no memory of his fur being shaved, or of the needle and stitch taken to his flesh, or the hot iron that cauterized his bloody stump; those days after the duel had passed in something of a delirium for him, a nightmare that was at once barely and all-too real. He assumed the doctor had attended him when he was crazed or asleep. This was the first time he’d been conscious and face-to-face with the pangolin…though he found, even if Scaleton was about the only mammal on this forsaken rock who wasn’t one of his tormentors, that he could summon little enthusiasm for conversation.

“How are you feeling?” Scaleton asked.

Nick said nothing in return. The question seemed so absurd as to merit anger -- how would anyone sane and sober expect him to feel? But all he felt was exhausted, his heart and soul emptied out to leave a thin shell behind. In the end, he managed, “I’m not complaining.”

For a moment, Scaleton paused and observed the fox, perhaps wondering if the sharp bite of the winter cold was bothering him, or perhaps the significance of the golden amulet he clutched tightly in his left paw. “Your dressings need changing,” Scaleton said finally, peeling away the blood-spotted gauze that swaddled Nick’s shoulder, replacing it with fresh linen. “You’re mending well; I should be able to draw out the stitches soon. May I examine your eye?”

Nick gave no reply to the contrary, so Scaleton leaned in close and prized open his shut lids. A cloudy orb stared back, the iris rent asymmetrical by _Nihilo’s_ dreadful sharpness, and all that had once been deep and vibrant green made pale as dry lichen.

“There’s no infection to speak of,” Scalton commented. “At the very least, you will keep the eye, blind as it is. You can count yourself lucky; it’s a rather unpleasant procedure to cut it out.”

Nick had nothing to say to this, as if it was instead his tongue that had been sliced out. He stared vacantly at the roof of the cell while Scaleton toiled over his bandages, muttering encouragements about the wounds closing over and the health of the pus. Then, without prompt, Scaleton asked, “Would you like to hear about the panther?”

Nick continued to observe the nothingness, apparently beyond the reach of all concerns.

Silence.

“Is he alive?”

“He is,” said Scaleton, “and healing well. I have seen all number of unaccountable things in my time. And nothing surprises me quite so much as the fact that that panther still has pulse and breath. It’s truly remarkable.”

“He’s got grit,” Nick conceded. Then his thoughts went to some burly Sansoran executioner far away, patiently sharpening the edge of a brutal longword, and his chest tightened in anger. He looked around for a distraction, something to take his mind away from the terrors and outrages over which he had no control, and found nothing suitable besides this strange, diminutive creature ministering over his wounds.

“Who the hell are you, anyway?” Nick asked.

The pangolin smiled sadly. “Scaleton -- Doctor Scaleton, that is, although few trouble to ask after my credentials these days. I’m a prisoner here, just as you are.”

“Pangolins are from Ja’kar, right?” Nick asked. “You’ve lost the accent.”

“Born and raised in Zooport,” Scaleton corrected. “I’ve only ever been a visitor to my ancestral homelands. In fact, that was where my family and I were destined that day, many years ago now, when the _Predator_ appeared on our horizon.”

Nick didn’t need to ask about the family. Dead. Bones on the ocean floor. “You’re lucky to be alive,” he said, though to call it good fortune rang hollow and untrue, and he ought to have felt regret for saying it. Scaleton’s smile was small and bitter.

“He saw value in sparing one with medical training, I suppose. Silas has no sympathy for the individual wolf in his crew, but he needs them as a whole to have able bodies and paws, so he needs my knowledge of anatomy and medicine, and my competency to stitch broken flesh back as whole. And he needs someone who can steer him back to good health on the rare occasion he is hurt or ill.” He noticed Nick’s stare upon him, full of cold judgement, and he sighed. “Yes, I healed the injuries you dealt the Blackwolf, and he will mount a full recovery. I know you think that abhorrent, but if I refuse…well, you know the lengths he’ll go to get what he wants.”

“Do what you will,” Nick muttered, looking away. He fell into his own thoughts for a moment, and then snorted. “Life,” he said. “Has there ever been such a paradox? It’s the most precious thing there is, and all we do in our attempts to preserve it make it worthless, clinging to it so hard that it breaks and runs through our fingers. I’m not a godly mammal, but if I was, I’d pray daily for a few souls walking this earth willing to part with their lives if it means doing what’s right.”

Scaleton was done nursing him, his wounds smeared with fresh unguent that, in the odd manner of medicine, stank liked sickness incarnate. Suddenly, he delved into his bag and came up with a bottle -- small in Nick’s paw, a jug to the pangolin -- filled with a clear liquid. He passed it over.

“It’s sterilising alcohol,” Scaleton explained. “Potable, but you certainly won’t need much.”

Nick pulled out the stopper and put the bottle’s rim to his lips, and immediately felt his throat and stomach catch fire. He fought off the urge to cough violently, took a second ginger mouthful, and handed the bottle back. Hoarsely, he said, “You’re right about not needing much,” and watched Scaleton take a draft that made his throat clench. Then he stared at Nick in the strangest fashion, through eyes that looked empty, like imitations, like glass beads.

“I…” the pangolin started, but falsely, and he turned back to the bottle, taking such a deep and dramatic swig that Nick had to admit he was impressed. “I,” Scaleton started again, “am not just a surgeon. Before I received my doctorate, I was an engineer -- a skilled one, at that. Oh, I didn’t mastermind anything as grand as the Belltower, or a royal estate, but rather those mundane structures of unappreciated complexity. Aqueducts. Sluices. The bone and muscle of a city.”

Nick imagined Scaleton was about to mourn his wasted talents and time here under Silas’ heel, and he wondered if he could wrestle the bottle away from him before the melancholy commenced.

“Silas was delighted,” Scaleton continued, “when he discovered what a prize he’d uncovered -- someone who knew the engineer’s and physician’s trade equally well. At first, he wanted walls rebuilt, and windows mortared in, and the mechanisms that govern the portcullis restored and running smoothly. And then…he wanted something different -- widened gunports, and then cannons mounted on swivelling trucks, and then an enlarged rudder. And then…”

Scaleton sat down, looking utterly miserable, clutching the bottle to his chest as if it were keeping him afloat.

“And then…he asked -- he _forced_ me -- to…”

Nick’s stare was on Scaleton, boring a hole between the pangolin’s fallen, tear-stained eyes.

“What did you do, Scaleton?”

The pangolin took a sharp breath, his voice wracked with sobs.

“He forced…he forced me…”

Nick leaned closer.

“Scaleton. Did you build the Cerberus?”

Scaleton looked horrified at the accusation, his paws going to his chest in a gesture of exculpation.

“No! I’d never! It was already here, as part of the fortress’ armaments. It was someone else’s demented handiwork. Silas wanted a ship without peers, a matchless vessel, and I merely saw to the complications of fitting it to the foredeck, of giving it necessary accuracy, of ensuring the forgebox wouldn’t tip and set fire to the ship. But that’s all I did. That’s all, and nothing more.”

“That’s all you did, huh?” Nick hissed, the fur on his shoulders beginning to stand up. “So, you only did what evil was requested of you, and this absolves you of blame?”

“You must understand,” Scaleton pleaded. “He threatens death casually, and you know what sadism he can leverage when he has the motivation. I abhor that weapon -- body and soul, I do. But what was I supposed to do--”

Nick’s foot lashed out and caught Scaleton full in the chest, sending him summersaulting backwards, the bottle tipping over, its clear contents sloshing over the floor. When Scaleton managed to clamber back to his feet, Nick was standing, tottering but full of violent menace, his jaw set in a predatory snarl.

 “I bet you were excited,” he growled, “when you saw them shove Felix and me off that god-damned ship. I bet you couldn’t believe your luck -- two sympathetic souls to hear your confession and wipe your moral slate clean.”

Nick’s fury suddenly bested his sense of balance, his mutilated vison and stomach full of spirits uniting to make his world twist and tumble, and he collapsed against the wall. But his searing gaze never left the pangolin.

“If your heart is sinking, let it sink further,” Nick rasped angrily, “for there’s nothing like forgiveness to be found here. Here’s what you were supposed to do -- you were supposed to die. And if you had anything like a spine, you’d have taken the Blackwolf with you. Tell yourself it’s been impossible, if you must -- that there was never an opportunity to dose him with poison or take a scalpel to his neck. But tell _me_ no such lies, because I see the truth clear as breaking day. You’re scared, and a coward. You’ve been clinging to life by a rope wrought from others’ suffering, and mine amongst it. When you die, your crimes will go with you, and if there is justice in the Afterworld they will weigh you down and drag you into whatever far-below murk awaits the very worst of us…”

His trembling leg buckled under him, and he slid back to his sitting position. “Don’t come down here again,” he hissed. “Leave me be. If I see you again, I’ll choke the life from you if I’m able.”

A hush fell once more in that underground prison, and in that pressing quiet Scaleton got slowly to his feet, fruitlessly dusted his filthy coat, collected his dropped belongings in his bag, and shuffled towards the door. Then, just before he left, he paused and turned back around. “I don’t doubt that you’re right,” he said. “That I’m a coward; that my sins will follow me beyond the grave; that you’ll kill me if I return. I understand, and I’ll try to respect your wishes. And I don’t say this believing it will absolve me in anyway. But, you deserve to hear it. Before I was sent down here I overheard a message Silas received from some outpost called Tor-Kropa. Judith and her remaining forces have quit Bersei and are sailing for Zooport right now. If she does not return, she will be safe beyond the Blackwolf’s reach.”

Nick, slumped against the wall, was unresponsive, so Scaleton rapped against the iron bars and called to the guards, who, in no hurry, unlocked the door, roughly ushered him out, and locked it again behind them. Once more, the cell returned to crypt-like quiet.

Lying by his father’s side, Nick pressed his lucky amulet to his brow and began to weep.

Tears of sadness. Tears of joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a while, huh? 
> 
> I haven't shaped the entire end of the story yet, and that's what's really been slowing me down lately, but I'm confidant enough that this chapter contains everything it could need. The care required to make a neatly wrapped package of this whole story is making me nervous, but that's only because I've invested so much time in this project -- just recently, I clocked a year since the first chapter of Fox's Guile and almost 150,000 words in that time. So I'm damned if I'm going to drop the ball now.


	19. Attack

The sky was absent a moon -- sacred Luna vanished, the portal to paradise sealed over. In its truancy, a pure darkness fell over the sea and all light became nothing but conjecture. The _Seastorm_ rocked vigorously in those black waters, heaving to against the strong winds, holding its position. From its decks, the coastline was little more than a faint and distant smudge, barely a shade brighter than the impenetrable night sky behind it. But it was certainly there. And upon it, equally certainly, were the lofty turrets and walls of a fortress.

Yesterday it had started to snow, and by nightfall it was coming down in a great white cascade, a terrific blizzard born out of winter’s amoral capriciousness. Snow began to grow in slouching piles against the bulwarks and across the sail yards, and some amongst the crew feared that the drifts would be spotted and spoil their midnight camouflage. Judith, however, was unconcerned. With their lamps doused and their sails pitch-blackened, they were surely sufficiently invisible to any watcher manning the stronghold’s walls, and she doubted the snow would collect in sufficient quantity to make them recognisable amidst the storm of wheeling flakes. What was causing her worry was whether the snow would spoil her master gunner’s aim; this plan, after all, called for a degree of laudable accuracy.

At any rate, success or failure was out of her paws until the _Invulnerable_ made its move. She watched her flagship patiently through her spyglass, its lanternlights just visible out in the stark weather, and waited patiently for Beck to strike.

Harley came up to the main deck, his breath steaming in the cold, head buried in the collar of his thick woollen coat.

“Right, the decks below are cleared,” he announced. “Every fighting mammal is up here and ready to make a start…”

Judith heard a dip in his tone, a note of uncertainty, and pursued an explanation, even though she reckoned she knew what was bothering the leopard. “Does something trouble you, First Lieutenant?” she asked. “I hope you’re not afraid of the coming battle.”

“No,” he returned hotly, his pride pricked. “I relish the chance to visit retribution on these cads as much as the next mammal, Commodore. It’s not that…it’s…I just hope Lars will be alright.” He turned his gaze out to where the _Invulnerable_ sat the water, where some three hundred souls were preparing for an audacious engagement, many times more daring than the battle he was facing. “I know he’s an ill-mannered scoundrel, but he’s an ill-mannered scoundrel who’s fought side-by-side with me since we both enlisted. I’d hate for the worst to befall him, and here’s me able to do nothing.”

“Lars is a lieutenant of the Royal Navy,” she replied, not without sympathy, but knowing when stern correction was needed. “He’s a veteran of sortie against the _Tribunal_ , the toughest battle we have faced before now. If anyone is chiselled of hard enough stone to survive a clash with the _Predator_ , it’s him. And in any case, he is hardly alone; there’s three hundred brave sailors and marines by his side, and Captain Harroway is there to command them. You really ought to look to your own safety, and that of the sailors with you.”

“You’re right, of course,” Harley admitted. “I’m sorry to have brought it up. Perhaps this damnable weather has snap-frozen my brain. The people of Zoohaven wouldn’t believe cold like this exists.” It was then that he noticed his commodore was dressed in nothing warmer than her usual uniform, a buttoned blouse and overcoat. “Commodore, do you want one of the coats from below? You can’t possibly be comfortable in those clothes.”

“I’m fine. The cold is bracing.”

“Well I’m not bloody-well fine!” came a plaintive squeak from their feet. “You can fetch me one of those coats; it’s so cold it’s like to have frozen my arsehole shut.”

The voice belonged to one Artemis Scratch, who was not a mammal anybody cared about very much. He was the dismal rat they had plucked from Tor-Kropa -- on Artemis’ dubious word, he was a citizen of Zoohaven, but had stowed-away to another country years ago and had ended up stranded on the island without hope of passage off. That is, until the _Invulnerable_ and the _Seastorm_ sailed into port, and he had joined the Zoohaven crew as their new smallest member.

Harley looked down at the rodent, his lip wrinkled with disfavour. “There are no coats aboard in your size,” he said. “And you’ll kindly mind your tone in the company of the commodore.”

Perhaps there was something infectious loose on Tor-Kropa, some plague whose symptoms included sour tongues, for Artemis had a decent dollop of Tuskovitch’s sauce. He looked up at Harley with a sneer, even though the leopard was easily large enough to crush him flat with a single paw, and quipped, “Well, pardon my foul language, cat, but I can only guess that risking my life in the service of this mad cause has my delicate nerves rattled. You might have to plug your ears, instead.”

Harley growled, a lecture already taking shape on his tongue, but Judith raised a paw to silence them both.

“You all have parts to play, and you’ll play them without protest. And Artemis,” she added, relinquishing her spyglass to pin the rat down with a nail-sharp stare, “it would have dawned on someone clever that, regardless whether their contribution is to a successful or failed venture, they just might get left behind on a frozen shoreline should the captain take a dislike to them.”

Artemis’ mouth puckered, as if there were something acrid on his tongue. “Saints,” he grumbled, “this just gets worse and worse for me.” He turned to MacHorn, standing there as impassive and adamant as carved stone, and said, “Hey, rhino, are you certain you’re skilled enough to pull this off? I’d consider it something of an inconvenience if you miss, and I end up as a smear on a stone wall.”

If MacHorn heard or cared about this questioning of his abilities, there wasn’t so much as a crease in his brow to show it. He unblinkingly watched the distant fortress, his thoughts his own and no way to infer them.

Judith was back on her spyglass, and, like MacHorn, was resolutely keeping her feelings bottled and stored. Her optimism and fervour, however, were sharing equal space in her skull with a brewing sense of dread. For she had been here before, in the few spare moments before a plan enacted -- every detail she could imagine accounted for, an inarguable chance of success -- and had it blow up in her paws. Only a fool would proceed now believing there was no possibility that things might go wrong again. And this was all assuming the fortress wasn’t actually vacant, that her estimation hadn’t been completely errant.

Suddenly, she saw the _Invulnerable’s_ jib-sail balloon with wind as the lines and braces slackened on the port side, saw its rudder turn opposite to this and the whole towering vessel turn until its broadside was to the fortress. Then, once the rolling swell tilted the ship back, there was a succession of flat _thuds_ , the cannonade muted by distance, and a waft of white smoke barely locatable though the falling snow. Far off, too far to see, this volley of cannonballs crashed against the stone walls of Krak-Kavan.

Lowering her spyglass, Judith waited, resolute but tense. Now was the moment. Was her plan based on fact or falsehood? Were they here for nothing?

And then a sound came ringing out of the snow-blown darkn -- a deep and mournful wail, the pulmonics of some unnatural goliath beast visited upon this earth from some other, crueller world. A sound to strike dread in the heart and soul of any who’d hear it. It brought a grin to Judith’s lips.

This den was not empty.

The Zoohavenites on the deck began to whoop at their good fortune -- this long throw on poor odds had rewarded them and given them an unrepeatable chance at the prize -- before the officers quickly enforced silence with vicious threats for they were supposed to be coming as assassins in the night, not as blunder-footed warmongers. Judith turned to MacHorn, who halted surveying the distant target to lower his flinty gaze, waiting for her orders.

“MacHorn,” Judith said, collapsing her spyglass with a sharp clap, “our largest long gun is still _Deafener_ , correct?”

MacHorn nodded.

“Prepare her for fire. We have a fortress to take.”

 

 

Once accommodation for more noble sorts, the grand parlour was now appointed for the recreation of these mangy, cultureless pirates. Like all the rooms in this ancient fort, it was falling to dilapidation -- feeling the effects of time, that exacting auditor -- although it was still well appointed: the carpets were clean, if age-faded; a number of rich tapestries adorned the walls, some originals, some plunder -- scenes from ancient fables, canon poetry, religious epics, the significance of all lost on these vulgar louts; a chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling, ornate and sinister, dripping with spikes as if it served some secondary function as a device of torture. Amidst all this opulence, the wolves reclined and passed the time idly. Some played cards or dice. Some sharpened daggers. Bawdy conversations about experiences with whores. A fabled recount of one legendary trull with, supposedly, two cunts. All doing their best to avoid eye contact with their diminished captain.

He observed them from the mezzanine at the top of two grand spiral stairways, sitting on a tall fauteuil. His black coat hung from the chairback, his bandages on display for all to see -- for comfort or unspoken rodomontade, none could be certain. He swirled an untouched glass of claret in his right paw, and he watched his company loiter in the room below.

A bethroned monarch, seated above his disaffected subjects. Wary eyes. Is his reign secure?

Suddenly, he stiffened and leaned forward in his chair as the baroque oak doors at the room’s far end opened and the foreboding shape of Kurt emerged from without. He had traded his white bandage for an eyepatch made of cork leather; his remaining eye found Silas out, and his brow angled in sullen loathing. There was good reason for his mood, beyond the duel that had rendered him cyclopean; the word that Judith had slipped their clutches had circulated swiftly within the fortress, and, naturally, the muttering it provoked was largely concerned with why they had not tightened those clutches and choked out her life when the chance was there. Most thought that the Blackwolf had been toying with the rabbit, banking on Judith’s confidence keeping her in the fray -- an odd thought, really, given the degraded repute of prey in that circle of wolves. Some felt that the damage wrought to the _Predator_ during the battle was justification enough for their tactical retreat.

And then there were others who harboured different thoughts, who spoke in hushed muttering of Silas’ decline. They spoke of the need for someone to wrest power from his ailing claws. But they did not speak too loudly.

Kurt began to walk amongst the tables, laying his paw on shoulders and engaging in whispered parley. Some brushed him off, and some listened quietly, allowing an occasional nod.

When Silas stood, the wine glass in his paw was empty; he leaned against the railing, shot Kurt an incendiary sneer, and called, “Kurt, it is so good of you to join us this night, this moonless night. Our revelry was poorer for your absence. Now, will you come up and join me? Will you fill the empty chair at my table?”

Kurt, hunched by a table below, straightened slowly. He refused to meet Silas’ yellow eyes.

“And speak about what?” he growled. “We’ve no common ground, nothing but difference between us. If we consort, it will end in drawn blades.”

Silas refilled his glass, sloshing wine over the rim and onto the floor. “There’s no need for such an eventuality,” he said. “No need at all. We already know who among us is the finer sword. There’s nothing further to settle. And I have no need of a blind first mate.”

“Of course you don’t,” Kurt retorted. “What use does the blind have of the blind? Aye, blind you are, I say -- blinded by arrogance. And if you could see beyond your own dizzying conceit, you would have seen our chance at ending Judith Hopps slipping through your claws. Now, the quarry had fled and gone to ground. The hunt is over.” Every line that fell of his tongue was laced with venom, he some asp or spitting cobra. And while that poison dripped of his lips, the whole consort turned to watch Silas reply, for it was hard dispute that Kurt was not correct; Silas had made a serious blunder.

An apology? An explanation? Of course not -- it would not do amidst predators such as these, where respect was earned and kept with threat and force. Silas drained his full cup -- swallowed it in two gulps, his gullet jerking, his scalenes flexing taut -- and exhaled in satisfaction, the wine stains around his muzzle painting him as a demented clown.

“Come up, Kurt. I am weary of solitude. Come up here. We will not speak a word.” His paw was on _Nihilo_ before he’d even finished his sentence, his abandoned cup falling to the floor to burst against the stonework, crying shrilly as shards of porcelain skittered away.

Kurt was hesitant. His rage was beginning to build, and it had years of embittered history to burn as fuel. Better still, Silas would never be weaker, so now, in his state of partial recovery, gave Kurt his best shot. But that adamant voice in the back of his mind, that persistent interlocutor who knows every secret and suspicion, gave him pause. _Are those injuries enough? You’re risking your last eye, after all._

And then Silas said the words to push him over the precipice.

“Come up. A pet’s place is at his master’s feet.”

That insult. Amongst canids as these, blasphemy of the harshest order. Kurt seized the handle of his blade, and an inch of sharp steel showed. Silas’ drunken leer grew, showing every tooth.

And then, a moment before they both drew full length and this unresolved duel came to its inevitable and bloody terminus, a thunderous clap resonated through the parlour. It shook the room from floor to ceiling, sending clods of aging plaster tumbling down from the vaulted roof, rattling the chandelier which clanked in protest. This was all followed by another sound, whose meaning was impossible to miss-guess -- the deep bellow of the horn, which inside the fortress hummed in every chamber and room.

A trio of wolves abandoned their stalled game of dice and rushed to the window, staring out into the snow-clouded night.

“Oh, by Luna’s hanging tits,” one of them cursed. “There’s a fucking warship in the bay!”

The shock was unmistakable on every face present. Silas, however, wore a blank mask, a featureless persona, without even faint indication as to what turbulent emotions might have been stirring underneath. He looked as if this was a possibility he had simply never considered. Then a second broadside rocked the redoubt, and this blank mask split.

“Get your swords and pistols by you!” he roared, audible even above the resonating clap of cannonfire outside. “Get them and make way down to the _Predator!_ It’s that fucking bitch Hopps, without a doubt! We’ll ride out and tear her to bloody shreds!”

The sense of imminent mutiny evaporated as the crew leaped into frenzied action, baying and growling, some rushing away on all fours like ancestors from a primitive age. Silas stormed down the stairway, his sabre rattling by his side on every footfall, his bandaged leg bleeding but no impediment in the face of his erupting fury. One wolf had the poor judgement to block his path, saying, “Captain, the forge won’t be hot enough to load heated shot! Won’t be for hours, and that’s if we light it now! You want to take the _Predator_ out against the Zoohaven navy without—”

Silas seized the wolf’s cheek in one paw and drove his head into the stone wall, screaming into his face. “How dare you! By Luna, are you a true wolf!? You disgrace yourself, fretting in terror over what a damned rabbit might do! Are you a true wolf!? Then you have nothing to fucking fear from prey!”

He let go and surged onward towards the exit, leaving the wolf standing there on the bottom step. But this advisor did not turn to follow; there was blood running from his ear, and something was wrong with the shape of his head. Slowly, he slumped against the wall and then slid to a pile in the corner where he stirred no further.

Silas paid him no heed; between him and the exit was Kurt, and his first mate still had his paw laid over the handle of his sword, still ready, even with the enemy at their gates, to draw his blade and author in blood the end of an old chapter, the start of a new. But something yet held him back, even as Silas stopped to confront him, eyes to eye, easily within reach of a swift thrust. Then Silas said, “When this pressing business outside is seen to, we will return to this chamber, you and I, and one will kill the other. Until then, you are first mate, and unless you wish to face a mutineer’s penance at the paws of the crew, you’ll be on the quarterdeck and ready to take orders when I haul anchor. Well? Do I have your word?”

Kurt glowered. The crooks of his mouth hoisted into his cheeks, as if the sheer force of his hatred were pinching back the skin on his skull. His grip on his blade only tightened.

And then, it slackened, and he replied, “My word. Aye. You have it.” The he turned on his heel and made for the exit.

 Silas grinned after him. That was the thing about pets. They might growl and snap, trying to bite the paw that feeds them, but one swift lash of the boot and they’d grovel as they were supposed to. This one, however, was getting less dependable by the second, and needed to be turned loose of his collar and put down. He’d be needing soon, it seemed, a new first mate. And speaking of gutting…

“You!” he barked, gesturing to two wolves who were amongst the last to leave, still hurrying to buckle their belts and haul boots onto their feet. “That fox rotting in the cells below. Go and fetch him. I want him to be close enough to smell the gore when I tear his captain open from neck to navel.”

The pair nodded in compliance, and where halfway out the door when Silas added, “Wait! One other thing…”

Kurt might have been an insubordinate wretch, and barely clever enough to hold a sword by the smart end, but the mangy cur had one point on which Silas would grudgingly concede -- Nick was dangerous.

“I won’t grant him any chance at escape. When you collect him, take his other eye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody! I missed you to.
> 
> It's been a bit of a slog, but I've written 3 additional chapters that just need polishing, and I've got a clear view through to the resolution now. Another things that slowed me down, but really needed to be done, was that I changed what books I'm reading in my spare time to mirror the tone I want in my own story. I've made no secret that Cormac McCarthy is one of my favourite authors -- he's the one I read for the sheer joy of reading, for his endless creativity in manipulating language, and not just for his plots. But his work is unrelentingly dark, and while I definitely planned for The Hunt to be murky in tone, there's every chance that, here and there, I've gone overboard emulating his bleak and nihilistic style. So I've switched over to Charles Dickens, who knows how to wear a smile once in a while, and see if that gets my rudder back where I want it.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, which marks the beginning of the climax. I'm sure you all have your own expectations, and all I'm willing to do is to quote that prophetic movie title -- There Will Be Blood.


	20. Navis daemonium

It was only a muted rumble, like a stomach growling for want of supper, almost inaudible down here in the innards of the earth. But it was a sound Nick would recognise anywhere.

Cannons. Walls under siege.

He stood up on unsteady feet, keeping his balance through outright force of will. The gold amulet dangled from his fist -- he had been staring at it, absently contemplating the nature of luck, and his lack thereof in particular, though whatever revelations he had come to on the subject were immediately routed at this unexpected interruption. He loped across the length of his cell and splayed himself against the bars, an ear thrust to the spaces, desperate for a repeat of that noise that might -- _oh, by the Saints, let it not be so_ \-- have been mere hallucination.

It came again. Like a thunderstorm on the far horizon. It was no trick of the mind.

Nick opened his mouth to call out, to beseech any who could hear him and bid they tell him who was making that noise, until he remembered where he was, in this place devoid of allies. But really, he was only looking for someone to confirm what he already suspected.

Someone’s army was at the Blackwolf’s gates.

And whose army? Flying what colours? Well, to his mind there was just one commander with the cunning and fortitude to root out this hiding place.

Here he’d been, mentally preparing for his demise -- digging his own grave, ready to consign himself to the earth and to be forevermore apart from the woes and wants of the living. And then, in one pawful of loose gravedirt, he’d found a treasure he thought was lost to him -- a pair of priceless amethysts. And all of a sudden, the trials of going forward were more than worth bearing.

 _Alright Nick,_ he thought. _Get your feet out of the god-damned grave. You’re going to live for her until you’re thoroughly dead._

He began to shake the bars, crying out until his throat grew hoarse, shrieking as one committed to an asylum for lunacy might do. Then he heard the scrape of hobnails on stone and saw shadows flare against the wall in herald of arriving company, and he ceased shouting as a pair of foul-tempered wolves descended the stairs and stopped before of the cell door.

“Shut your mouth,” snapped the nearest, Grigory, who thumped the gate with his fist to chase Nick back, “or I’ll slice your worthless tongue out!”

“Fine,” Nick shot back. “It doesn’t matter; the facts are the same, with or without my silence. Justice has come for you, hasn’t it? And she leaves neither escape nor prisoner.”

The wolf to the left, Oleg, stepped forward, a hefty keyring hanging from his paw. He narrowed his eyes at Nick. “We’ll see about that,” he muttered, thumbing the keys until he found a match for the cell door. “Step back from there. You’ll be coming with us.”

Nick stared at this wolf and then the other, feeling a wave of cold tunnel down his spine. Of course: Nick was Silas’ trump card. The Blackwolf would be going into battle with pistol in one paw and Nick’s bound wrists in the other, whatever he had to do get the advantage over Judith. If they met in combat this way, Judith would have to choose between her life and his. How could he be so daft to forget?

And then, as this dread reality dawned on him -- as his reclaimed treasure threatened to slip between his fingers and vanish once again into the earth -- Nick noticed something else. Grigory had his paw on the hilt of his sabre, ready to draw and do harm. Oleg caught the direction of Nick’s gaze, saw him put the fragments of parchment together and read the doom so spelled, and he smirked in a parody of sympathy.

“If you do as you’re told,” Oleg said, affecting the patient instruction of a nursemaid, “we’ll do no more than commanded, and only take your second eye. If you test our patience, we’ll take the fingers on your right paw as well.”

“And those on your left,” added Grigory, scowling with menace.

“And your tail, too.”

“Ooh. The tail. Nice touch.”

“Basically,” said Oleg, “we’ll cut off every bit you don’t need to breathe or pump blood. You could do a lot worse than being a blind fox…”

Nick backed away from the door, his eye darting between the two wolves, his ears flattened back against his skull. Oleg nodded at his submission and smiled, saying, “There’s a good boy. We’ll make it as quick and painless as possible.” He slipped the key into the lock and gave it a twist. It snapped open.

Where does our speed and strength come from? From what inner reservoir do we sup when terror demands we move fast and strike hard? Whatever vessel it is, and however cracked and leaking Nick’s was at that moment, he suddenly found it positively overflowing, and he rushed at Oleg faster than a viper over hot coals. He seized his paws and yanked them through the bars with such force that he dislocated two knuckles, and the wolf howled in pain. Before he could draw them back, Nick lashed his amulet’s chain around Oleg’s wrists, binding them fast to the door’s iron stanchion. Then Nick took his enemy’s sword and yanked it free of its scabbard, giving the blade a testing swipe and smiling; it seemed he could still hold a sword after all.

Behind his groaning hostage, Grigory cursed and drew his own blade, giving it a threatening shake at Nick and stepping in to disentangle his comrade. But he was too slow -- with a violent grunt, Nick put the point of Oleg’s sword through his own brow until he saw the bladetip emerge on the other side of his head, slick with blood and pulped brain. He pulled it free with a wet sucking sound and Oleg slumped bonelessly, going cross-eyed in death, apparently trying to see the hole in his own forehead.

With the door now unlocked, Nick gave it a forceful shove and pushed it open, cadaverous anchor and all. Once the way was clear and he had stepped through to freedom, he turned his monocular glare on Grigory, who brandished his sword in both paws.

“There’s no two chances with me, friend,” Nick growled, steadying his shaking legs. “If you don’t land the first cut, I’ll kill you where you stand.”

“That’s bluff talk from a piece of shit fox with one eye and half a paw,” Grigory spat back. “You can hardly stand upright, let alone swing a sword.”

“Stake your life on it.”

Grigory rushed him with a scream, a froth of spittle on his lips, swinging his blade overhead. That scream became a gurgle, however, when Nick ducked under his blow and buried his sabre in Grigory’s stomach, all the way to the hilt. The blade refused to tug free after that, and Nick had to put his foot in the wheezing wolf’s chest and kick him away, at which point the sword came loose in a gout of arterial red and Nick stumbled backward, landing with a _thud_ on the floor.

He lay there for some time in the grim quiet, eyes pinched shut to calm his reeling vision, breathing deep to slow the rapid quake of his heart. And then he realised he was free, that this was no dream, and the joyless mask he had worn so long cracked and revealed a broad grin. He began to laugh.

With some effort, he got to his feet and reclaimed his amulet, pushing Oleg’s body to the floor. He raised the pendant up, and it caught the light off the sconces, glowing as if it were endowed with protective sorcery. Then he glanced to the dead wolves on the floor, sprawled beside one another, arms entangled in a macabre simulation of courtship. Charting this encounter with his earlier luck, it ought to be he lying in a dark pool of blood -- how, by gods, did an unarmed and mutilated prisoner get the better of two able guards? Maybe there was something to this business of luck after all. He raised the pendant to his lips and kissed it gently.

“Death comes for all?” he muttered. “Aye, it comes. And if I’ve truly come upon some good fortune, it will come for the unjust souls before it touches the just.”

He looked back down at the wolves on the ground, making a momentary study of those cadaverous suitors before judging one roughly his size and peeling off the dead wolf’s coat, throwing it around his shoulders. Then he draped the amulet around his neck and made for the stairway. His foot was on the first step when he paused and looked back, taking a final glance back through the maw of the cell where his father yet lay and would do so forever. If he could, Nick would have pulled this evil place down to the last stone, and then ground that stone to fine dust so that less than nothing remained. He would have seen this grave filled in. His father given peace at last.

But such was beyond his means. The best he could do was one belated eulogy.

“I wish I had met you,” he said. “You, and her, whoever she was. I wish I had memories of your strong paw around mine. Of her soft embrace and gentle kisses. I’m sure you wanted the same…”

Dry-eyed, he offered a salute, and then turned to mount the stairs that led upwards into the redoubt. For there was, in actual fact, one other thing he could do in John Wilde’s name, one thing to square the injustice of his father’s murder, an act to which he had sworn. And before he sought out his beloved and reclaimed the life that had been stolen from him, he would see it done.

Besides, he needed his own coat and sword back.

 

 

Winter was everywhere, in all things, seeped down into their very cores. In the inlet beneath Krak-Kavan, it raised fingers of frost-smoke off the surface of the lake, shrouding everything in soft white steam. Condensation had frozen solid and made polished marble of the roughly masoned stone walls and floors. Ice crusted over the heaps of treasure, snowcaps on golden mountains. Icicles hung from the _Predator’s_ yardarms, and there was frost in the carved recesses of its skeletal figurehead, like delicate spiderwebs spun in a long-rotted body.

Yet despite winter’s claim on it, the _Predator_ did not look like the same cannon-scarred shambles that had faltered in from the Latara weeks ago, battered to pieces and short one mast. Now, with the shot damage repaired and fresh sails hoisted, it was once again that terrible monstrosity that all sailors feared to spot emerging from the fog. Navis daemonium. The demon ship. The fire-breathing dragon.

Except…this dragon’s breath had cooled in its throat; there would be no hellfire bark from the vicious demons perched on its foredeck. If the _Predator_ was going to sail to battle and emerge triumphant, it would be alone by merit of its cannons, its captain, and its crew -- by blunt trauma and sly agility.

Silas watched his wolves embark, hooting and howling as they went, the most psychotic amongst them discharging pistols into the cave’s high-vaulted ceiling in their wild exuberance. Daring rigmammals swung like acrobats through the cordage above, unfurling the sails. The gunports snapped open to reveal the crew dislodging corks from cannonbores and taking wad-screws to the barrels. Wolves ferried bags of sand to the top decks, grit to soak up the blood and snowmelt. It was some furore -- the tumult of a ship preparing for the hunt.

From the depth of the hate-clotted matter that was his brain, Silas felt a surge of predacious confidence. Sound appraisal would have deemed such brashness contradictory with the gravity of the situation -- two fully armed warships waited in his harbour, and his best weapon was inoperative. But Silas saw it in so such light; he was going up against an opponent he had beaten once before, and he felt no doubt that he could do so again. What, was he powerless without his flaming shot? These Zoohaven degenerates would fall just as quick under cold hard steel or, if it came to it, fang and claw -- a rabbit could never be his equal in that last department. And of course, even if his enemy proved a greater threat than their low specieshood warranted, he still had his trump card; Hopps couldn’t touch him, so long as...

A thought suddenly struck him, and he paused for a moment before turning to survey the dock. The last of the wolves called to the _Predator’s_ battle stations were making their way down the stairs and across the pier, past those who would remain behind to keep the fort and raise the gates. There wasn’t so much as a scrap of orange fur amongst them. And, now that he paid close attention, he also realised that he’d yet to see Kurt descend from the redoubt above.

A faint twitch tightened his right canthus. Then, without warning, his paw shot out and seized a passing pirate by the throat, all but hoisting him right off the ground. Silas leaned in close to his struggling catch and hissed, “Where are they, hmm? Where is my first mate, and where is my fox?” The wolf could only splutter back, trying to prise the Blackwolf’s tightening fingers open. But Silas was done with him and thrust him aside with a snarl, sending him tripping over the pier-edge; his head bounced off the _Predator’s_ hull with an impressive _clonk_ before he splashed into the black dockwater below, a few stunned and amused faces appearing in the gunports to watch their unfortunate comrade thrash and gasp for air.

The last few wolves to board did so swiftly, giving Silas a wide berth lest he make mindless victims out of them as well. He was now, however, preoccupied with staring back towards the fortress, trying to imagine why his instructions had not been followed. Kurt was an easy guess; that scum had abandoned him, probably with imprudent plans to instigate a coup once the fighting was over. So be it -- Kurt’s betrayal had been coming a long time, and his punishment was just as certain. But Nick? What trouble could an unarmed, one-eyed, part-pawed fox cause for two capable guards? The thought settled over him that he had made a miscalculation of that fox a second time, and this was followed by a portentous consequent.

Did he need the fox? Did he need a hostage to best Hopps?

Silas stood still, his eyes flickering left to right, left to right, evidence of rare indecision. His back was to the ship, but he knew there were eyes upon him, eyes watching to see what he would do, making silent judgement.

Then his mouth contorted in a vicious snarl, and he drew _Nihilo_ from its sheath, muttering in low tones a solemn oath; by morrow’s dawn, the world would be rid of Judith Hopps, and he needed no more than a sharp blade to make good on that promise.

He turned on his heel and ascended the gangplank, the last to do so, and the bridges were drawn up and stowed by the gunwales in preparation of departure. Vilka saw Silas from the quarterdeck, and at once the wolf suspected something awry; Silas’ face was furiously dark, and while Vilka had known his master for some catastrophic rages, he’d yet to see anger as rich and deep as he saw now. The Blackwolf strode right past Vilka, growling, “Congratulations -- you’re promoted to first mate,” before seeking out his helmswolf, Yakov, a grizzled timberwolf with a face full of scars and a false nose rudely fashioned from hammered brass.

“Take us out. We’re off to stalk our prey in the shadow of a vanished moon.”

 

 

Up went the gate of Krak-Kavan, screeching as it dug through the frost collected in its gatetracks before it halted at the archway’s apex with a resounding _clang_ , sheets of latticed ice tumbling off its bars and into the black sea below. The _Predator_ soon emerged, an exorcised demon chased from a screaming stone maw, rocking in the channel until its sails caught the coastal winds and the ship surged forward into open waters, setting course for the distant group of cannon-flashes that marked their foe. The night was dark, the snow wild -- confetti hurled by some pagan Whitewastes’ god in celebration of the bloodletting to come. Soon, the _Predator_ all but vanished into the chaotic murk.

Had there been a measure of caution amongst even one of the pirate crew, rather than the rash impulse for violence that reigned, one pair of keen eyes might have spied the black-sailed ship that emerged from the darkness and swept through the _Predator’s_ wake, heaving to in the frantic chop outside Krak-Kavan’s now sealed portcullis. And although the iron was thick, and no ship could hope, even with a rated vessel’s immense firepower, to break down the gate without consequently lodging it in the channel-mouth, this speculative watcher might have felt a nervous tingle, a sense that some devious plot was afoot, at the flash of a single cannon on that ship’s deck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nick's free, and Judith's ploy is tightening. Oooh, I've got butterflies just thinking about it. The next few chapters are going to be bedlam and no mistake. Hope you're enjoying it!


	21. Coins

The coconut skimmed across the water’s surface, raising jets of spray as friction forced it into a wild spin and eventually to slow. By the time it had shed its velocity, the coconut was bobbing in the excited churn of the inlet’s waters, just a few feet from the bars of the iron gate.

If someone had been watching the spectacle at that moment, their first question would certainly have been,  _ why by the Saints is there an airborne coconut here? _ And hot on the heels of this first inquiry would have been,  _ why can I hear the sound of someone retching? _

The lapping waves soon carried the coconut through a gap in the portcullis spikes, depositing it into the placid waters of the cave beyond. At this moment, something began to bulge from the coconut’s shell -- a cork, sunk into a hole drilled through the husk and being pushed outward by someone inside. The stopper dislodged itself with a  _ pop _ , and out of the hole scurried a sorry-looking rodent who perched on the spherical cap that showed above the waterline. The rat looked down at his shirtfront and breeches which were streaked with his vomit. Sneering with disgust, he brushed the worst of the lumps off with the back of his claw.

“Couldn’t bloody be easy, could it?” Artemis grumbled. “Ain’t enough to risk life and limb -- you’ve got to wear what you ate for dinner as well…”

He looked around to take his bearings and saw, to his left, a pathway at the crown of a steep granite slope. Presumably it granted passage between the hidden cove and the mechanism that towed ships into and out of this windless grotto. He could see a vast crank-wheel and, high above, an enormous, solid-iron, pillar-shaped counterweight.

Artemis dived back into the coconut and re-emerged with a grapple and line slung over one shoulder. Across his back, wrapped up in a small canvas rucksack, was what looked like a tiny powder barrel.

The rat swung the grapple above his head in small orbits before letting it sail through the air where it snared the sheer stone shore. Then he drew himself through the water, claw over claw, until he was close enough to abandon his raft and clutch the rocks themselves. The gradient and surface were a challenge, even for his natural rodent dexterity, but with ample cursing he managed to scale to the level pathway to where the towline was wound tight around its huge, labour-driven wheel and where, just beyond, a narrow stairway hewn into the granite wall receded upwards into the vaulting darkness.

Artemis paused for a moment -- to catch his breath, to stretch the aches out of his knuckles, to bitch that Zooport had best be a tropical paradise to warrant the price of his ticket -- before he scuttled up the stairs. Even though each step was so tall to him that he had to leap with arms outstretched to catch the rim of the next, and even weighted down with his sapper’s appurtenances, he managed the task gracefully and was soon standing on the portcullis’ archway. Here was the lever that raised and lowered the counterweight, a sturdy oak and iron pole that probably demanded an entire battalion of rats to engage, so Artemis let it be and scaled instead the gears this lever operated, all of which led to a long-toothed cog that passed through the chainlinks and held it at arrest. He stuck his diminutive powderkeg where gear and axle met, then ran a coil of fuseline off it, struck it alight with his flint, and rushed to safety and plugged his ears.

The blast was short and sharp and carried a metallic ring with it, like a hammer on sheetmetal. When the smoke cleared it revealed the axle blackened and badly warped, and in short order the colossal weight bearing upon it sheared this spindle right through, leaving the gear to clatter to the ground. Gravity already had a firm grip on the counterweight and now yanked it earthward, which necessitated the portcullis travelling the other way.

The door to Krak-Kavar was open.

 

 

Judith saw the portcullis begin its clamorous ascent and allowed herself a wicked grin in anticipation of the coming battle. But she granted herself no further lenience and knew she had to temper her hot urge of righteous violence -- her accelerating pulse and rising adrenaline. She had the element of surprise, but she’d had this before to no avail, and she’d be damned to let the lesson of that mistake go unlearned. Besides, advantage or none, this raid was dangerous. Good mammals were going to die.

She surveyed her crew’s preparations for the skirmish, charging muskets from powderflasks and wadding shots with ramrods, unbothered by the frenzied snow that blew in their manes and ears. Proud, stalwart sailors, all ready to risk their lives. Some of them, ready to give their lives. And once given, there was no taking them back. Judith hated the idea as beating hearts as currency for her to disburse, of herself as some battlefield economist. But someone had to oversee the accounts and ensure that, if lives were spent, they were not spent poorly. All she could do to ensure fair trade was make certain her own coins were advanced whenever a transaction must be made.

Judith had never had deep religious conviction -- not for the Herd, nor the leporine gods, nor any other deity who seemed only to exist as gaudy-coloured tableaus on canvas or in cotton -- but she found herself offering a silent prayer in hope some celestial ear caught it:  _ if you care at all for the fates and fortunes of us terrestrial beings, let us have good luck. Let there be safety for the just, and punishment for the unjust. I will gladly be your instrument. _

A score of sailors saw her standing on the quarterdeck, and they turned to fully face her, heads raised in expectation of some address. She scaled the railing, the better to be seen and heard, and thrust her rapier skyward. It wouldn’t do to tell them her secret hopes and prayers, to show them her tenderness. They needed her strength instead.

“Honour has called us to battle! Justice and decency have called upon us to wage war against their antitheses: brutality and lawlessness! Well, I am ready to heed their calls! How do you answer?!”

And at the great affirmative roar that went up from the crowd, she ordered the helmsmammal to sail forth, and the  _ Seastorm _ lanced forward through the tunnel mouth and into the gullet beyond.

Half a dozen wolves had come along the pathway, their attention drawn by the noise of the gate opening and probably suspecting some mechanical failure. Their attention quickly became alarm when they saw the prow of the  _ Seastorm _ appear, sporting its wooden lion figurehead whose carved and sightless eyes seemed nevertheless to find the wolves out and mark them for death. All six lupines spun and rushed back the way they had come, howling about the intrusion of their fortress walls. Unfortunately for them, a clutch of seasoned Zoohaven snipers had prepared on the foredeck and rewarded the wolves’ inquisition with a volley of musketry. Four of them tumbled and slumped, and two were shot through the thighs and limped away into the shadows.

Once the stern of the frigate passed into the cave, the anchor was lowered, cutting through the water’s black skin, sinking until it touched the channel floor, its flukes snaring fast. They could take the ship no further, and gangplanks were raised and set between the gunwales and the ridgeway. Soon, a small but capable force, sixty mammals strong, was arranged on the path, with just a skeleton crew elected to remain and protect the  _ Seastorm  _ from harm. The valiant three score readied their weapons, and then marched into the unknown dark in double file.

 

 

Silas’ wolves had not been expecting an assault on the redoubt and were few in number. They were barely prepared when the enemy arrived, having pushed some crates and barrels together to serve as a pair of makeshift barricades.

They were wholly unprepared, however, for MacHorn.

He emerged on the eastern side of the cavernous subterrane, his humongous rifle,  _ Absentia Misereri,  _ tucked under his arm. Immediately, a barrage of pistol and musket fire rained down on him from the pirate’s entrenchments, and MacHorn sought no greater protection than to raise an arm and shield his eyes, as one might in the discomfort of bright sunlight. Once their weapons were spent, he levelled his brutish cannon at the nearest hastily-erected barricade and fired, breaching the wooden stockade and shearing one luckless pirate in half.

From behind him, the rest of the Zoohaven raiders streamed onto the dock, adding their musket reports to the escalating chaos, and in short order the air between the two forces was a tempest of gunsmoke and whistling lead. One brave kudu stepped into the open and lobbed an incendiary bomb that detonated behind the barricade with a bright magnesium flash and a wash of heat. At once, five wolves went up like dry tinder and, wreathed partly or wholly in flames, rushed for the pier’s edge, strange pyromorphic apparitions hurling themselves into the water to steam and smoke and die.

Suddenly, the Zoohavenites were ambushed from the stairway, where a group of wolves on the landing, protected behind a low stone wall, opened fire on the outflanked intruders below, using their elevation to merciless effect. At least four mammals went down, rolling on the ground in agony. The kudu was struck right through the heart, and he pitched face-first onto the floor, dead before he touched the ground.

Judith rushed across the open, scampering from side to side, too quick for musketsights to follow, and took cover behind the piled wooden debris. The flanking sharpshooters would decimate their numbers if they weren’t dealt with swiftly, and she cried out to MacHorn to clear the stairs. The rhino nodded in assent and lumbered forward, while the other Zoohavenites, far less able to absorb gunfire, sought protection behind whatever cover they could find.

Judith glanced up and spied a pistol barrel reaching over the crates of the barricade and aimed straight at her. She rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the ball that cracked the flagstones where she had been standing. Then she vaulted the barricade and dived at the wolf who’d tried to blow her head off, grabbing at his collar while he raised the butt of his pistol to stave in her skull. Before he could, however, she pivoted around his neck until she was clinging to his back, one paw clutching his scruff, the other putting her blade to his nape. With a furious slash she cut through to the bone, and the wolf collapsed like dropped grain-sack, taking Judith down with him. 

She landed roughly on her shoulder, her rapier slipping from her grip, and she found herself sprawled defenceless on the hard stone before the other remaining wolf. He was charred and reeking from the firebomb, but plenty alive, and he turned on her with his cutlass raised and wild murder-lust in his eyes. Then something struck the wolf in the head, tearing his jaw clear from his face. The hatred drained out of those eyes in an instant, flooded instead with agonised shock. He slumped on his knees, a wretched, wet gurgle coming out in place of a wounded howl before a second ball swept through his brain and slew him complete. Judith cocked her head to the side and saw Harley toss his smoking pistols away and leap behind behind a wooden crate mere seconds before it was assailed by a wave of musket balls.

MacHorn was nearing the top of the stairs now, his huge bayoneted weapon clutched in one fist like some girthy pike. A second close volley erupted upon him, though the balls might as well have been bothersome insects. Then, suddenly, the tip of a cannon protruded over the topmost stair, an eight-pound culverin the defenders had rolled into position. The cannoneer fired just as MacHorn spotted the danger and threw himself against the rock on the wallward side.

But he was too slow, and too large a target.

Some of the grapeshot they had loaded the cannon with scoured his belly, peeling back lumps of hide and leaving brutal red gashes, but his right arm took the brunt of the blast, and his flesh was stripped back to the bone. For perhaps the first time MacHorn seemed incapacitated by pain, bellowing in an outraged frenzy, his eyes rolling in their sockets so that only the whites could be seen. His enormous rifle fell and clattered down the stairs while he pressed his damaged arm to his chest. One of the wolves saw his opportunity and vaulted from cover, leaping at the rhino across the divide between the landing and the stairs, aiming to sink his cutlass deep in MacHorn’s gorge.

Sheer disbelief swamped the pirate’s face, however, as MacHorn raised his left fist and thumped the wolf in midair, driving him downward like a hammer upon a wooden stake. The wolf plunged through the gulf and landed on the floor far below with a revolting crack. Then the rhino turned his bloodshot glare on the last of the wolves, a red rill escaping at the crook of his murderous grimace.

“No one survives,” he snarled.

The wolves had been labouring to reload the cannon, but before they could unleash a second hail of grapeshot, MacHorn stormed up the last few steps and seized the cannon by its end with his good arm, pulling it out of the grip of the gunner who fell sprawling on the ground. MacHorn hefted the culverin under his arm, tearing it clear of its trunnions; like a gigantic iron club, he brought it down on the prone wolf, crushing him utterly. Then he tossed the cannon aside and, roaring dementedly, went to work on the others without weapons beyond fist and horn and incontestable muscle.

Watching this madness from below, Judith got to her feet, ready to order reinforcements to join the wounded rhino in what was surely an otherwise unwinnable encounter. Then she was interrupted by a furious and many-throated bellow, and on turning she spotted a fresh contingent of pirates, twenty-some in number, emerging from some hidden recess on the other side of the dock, waving a mongrel armoury of swords and flintlocks and spiked bludgeons, all of them baying for blood. Judith blinked at this sudden appearance of reserves, and realised that she was separated from her troops and on the wrong side of the barricade.

She was exposed. She had blundered.

The foremost of their number saw Judith standing there and fired his pistols at her without so much as a pause in stride. She fell prone, rolling one dead wolf onto his side and making of him a corporeal pavise that soon shuddered with the shock of incoming balls. They were no more than twenty paces away and would be on her in seconds. She reached out, snatching up her dropped rapier, her pistol grasped in her other paw, ready to shoot whichever wolf she saw first and praying she could cut down two or three with her blade before she was overwhelmed.

Death was moments away, and the only thoughts that swirled in her mind were how proud she was that she had risked her life alongside her command, and that death might be sweet release. That she might soon lay her eyes on faces lost to her. Her paws tightened around her rapier. She was ready.

And then, as the first marauder reached her with a nailed maul lofted overhead, and as she sucked in a breath that was surely her last and prepared for martyrdom, the remainder of the Zoohavenites arrived at the barricade, fired whatever loaded weapons they had, and commenced a melee of such brutality that later the survivors, even those amongst them with great faculty for poetry, would struggle to put it into right words.

Lying there on the cold and blood-slick ground, Judith saw the battle unfold -- saw the wolf with the maul shot directly through the breast, saw spent fusils tumbling through the air as paws discarded them and went for sabre and cudgel instead, saw Harley clear the barricade in a single leap and shriek an atavistic battlecry that was unseemly for any breed of civilised warfare, saw a musketstock used as a bludgeon against a wolf’s skull, saw one of her own crew cut so deeply across the stomach that coils of grey viscera spilled out. Bloodshed of the basest calibre.

She was still alive. It was time to put forward her coins once again.

With a shout she sprung up from the ground and buried her rapier to the hilt in a wolf’s sternum, him gurgling and staggering and her swinging from the swordgrip like a mountaineer from a piton. From that holdfast she aimed her pistol from her hip and shot another foe through the head. Then she put her feet against the trunk of the wolf she was anchored to and pulled her sword free with a great lunge, sailing across the gulf between her and another enemy who was trying to train his pistolsights on her and whom she opened from centre to side like some gory mathematician reckoning the radius of the torso’s circle. Behind her, Harley was wading through the fray, slick with his own blood and others’, bringing his blade down on whatever un-uniformed flesh he could find, side by side with a gazelle who was doing the same and a tiger who had lost his sword and instead seized a pirate by the throat and endeavoured to throttle his enemy to death.

It became quickly apparent that the pirates were outclassed by the Zoohavenite’s appetite for reprisal, and soon the victorious side stood gasping for breath, leaning against one another for support, looking at the bodies lying butchered on the floor, their communal blood already congealing in the cold. The dead stared upward, eyes agoggle, as if in dim wonder at where their immortal spirits had fled from their cold flesh. Some of the Zoohavenites spat contemptuously on them. Others rushed to the aid of their wounded comrades.

Judith, however, was staring at the yellow mounds in the further corners of the room, like sand-dunes transported by queer magic from some desert where they belonged to this frozen north where they did not. And as she stepped closer, she realised that it was not just in appearance that these mountains were misplaced, as they resolved into piles of stolen gold and jewels -- the Blackwolf’s treasure trove.

Harley appeared beside her, towelling blood from his eyes with his sleeve and staring in awe at the ill-gotten wealth.

“Saints be good,” he gasped. “Is all this…”

“This is what fifteen years of unchecked plunder looks like,” Judith finished gravely, wiping the blood from her sword and returning it to its sheathe. “Well, mark my words -- we’re going to gather up every coin and see them returned to their rightful and grieving owners…just as soon as we have Silas in chains, and when every last trace of lupine scum is wiped from this place…”

Suddenly she remembered MacHorn, and she turned and sprinted over the corpse-strewn pier to the stairway, taking the steps two at a time. He lay on the landing, prostrate in a spreading pool of his own blood. One of the wolves had sunk a dagger in his neck and sawed through his jugular; somehow, in such a condition, he had managed to knock his murderer to the floor and reduce his head to featureless paste with his horn. But he was no immortal, regardless how often it seemed he was impervious to injury. That riven artery had been his undoing.

He was lying cheek down, one dead and glassy eye staring upward and partly rolled back under the leathery flap of his eyelid. Judith knelt down to look into that dark eye and saw not a mindless obedience to duty therein but, instead, pride of a deep and profound character. MacHorn had come from some anonymous slum without prospect, had risen through the ranks to be Master Gunner, and had made the ultimate sacrifice in service of a just cause. His life had been traded away, his coin claimed, but there was no more noble a purchase that he could have made.

She closed his eyelid, laid her paw on his broad, coriaceous cheek, and bid him a silent farewell. When she stood, the remainder of her force, thirty or so mammals who were not tending to the wounded or wounded themselves, were gathering on the landing and stairs, looking in dumbstruck disbelief at the corpse of the legendary MacHorn. 

“We can spare five to secure this dock and see to the injured,” she said to Harley, and then gestured to where the stairs stretched ever upward into the redoubt, to more blasted pirates. “As for the rest of us, there is no time to relax; our brothers are right now readying for battle out on the sea, and they are counting on us to clear this den in their absence. Let’s go -- our work is far from done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working at this chapter for so long that I've forgotten what life was like before I started. But it's done now, which means you get to find out what the coconut was for (someone did guess it exactly a few chapters back -- gold star!) and witness MacHorn's noble demise. At least he went out in a respectable fashion, and got some pretty badass art attributed to himself in the process.
> 
> Why put the rhino through the ringer like that? Well, mostly because I'm ready to move onto new combat set-pieces; while I'm sure I haven't exhausted the creativity around a single giant un-killable warrior in any particular fight, I'm starting to bore myself a bit, so it's time to move on. Well done MacHorn -- we salute you, and your ridiculous weapon as well.
> 
> Thanks, as always, for reading my story and telling me what you think, and for the kudos which might just hit 300 before we hit the final chapter. I'm hoping to have it all wrapped up by August (when I started The Hunt last year), and I'll try to be consistent with updates. Until next time!


	22. Swindled

Judith and her cohort of raiders made their way upward until they gained the lowest floor of the redoubt proper, where they came upon a fork in the path -- stairs leading further up, and a long hallway that receded into the shadows. Here Judith split her force in two, taking twenty with herself to attack the tower summit and granting Harley command of the other ten to sweep each floor and clear them of the enemy presence. With luck, they would meet victorious somewhere in the middle.

At the third floor, she came to an arched door that led out to the fortress’s ramparts, where the bitter squall threw snow in every direction, and where additional cannons waited for any sign of an enemy ship straying too close to the shore. Judith paused here, her teeth pressed into her lip. She didn’t want to divide her forces a second time, but she was also anxious that whichever wolves were on the tower’s highest level, if they saw an assault on the parapets below, would have a chance to bar the door and reinforce their position, and likely even snipe them from the tower window.

She turned and looked over her squadron, then pointed to the five who were foremost in possession of ruthless brawn and said, “You, come with me. The rest of you, flush the enemy from the parapets.” She and her five then carried on up the stairs, leaving fifteen behind to go out into the champing jaws of the monstrous blizzard.

This small platoon was led by a grizzled veteran pronghorn who was missing his left antler and left arm from a battle fought long ago. In the chasm of that intervening time his true name had vanished, and in its stead he went by the sobriquet Decent -- he was ‘all right’. He whispered for his soldiers to move quietly and advance on their hoof-tips, knowing the scream of the wind would conceal their approach until they were right on top of the enemy.

There were four triple-barrel cannons left on the fortress ramparts, carved with the same demonic countenances as the Cerberus and sharing its lethal range and accuracy. At that moment, a handful of wolves were struggling against the elements to light the forge-boxes, working the bellows so that the flames grew hot enough to turn ordinary iron shots into scorching comets. If they succeeded, it wouldn’t matter if the  _ Predator  _ won or lost; the fire-cannons could reduce to  _ Invulnerable  _ to a slick of ash if it came anywhere near the fortress.

But they only functioned so long as there were gunners to crew them.

“Muskets! Sight those far targets!” Decent ordered, and the twelve wolves turned as one and stared in rage and wonder at their unexpected company. The three furthest cannoneers  swallowed the Zoohavenite’s musket lead and fell dead where they stood. Those who remained drew their weapons, and one of the nearest pirates put his foot against the rim of the forge-box and, with a titanic shove, kicked the whole thing over, sending up a cloud of sizzling sparks and red coals.

Decent was undeterred by this flaming barrier and leaped it in a single agile bound, landing with his sabre drawn. One wolf leveled a pistol at him, but suddenly found himself missing both pistol and paw as Decent swept his blade through the wolf’s wrist. The other wolf brandished his cutlass and lunged forward, putting his sword through Decent’s arm.

Or, rather, through his empty sleeve.

Without pause, Decent slashed the wolf across the chest, dressing him in a vibrant red sash. Then he turned and opened the wounded wolf’s throat, whose body pitched forward and landed with a hiss on top of the still-burning embers on the floor, his blood smoking fouly and his fur curling in the heat. Meanwhile, what wolves remained were gunned down by the other Zoohavenites’s pistols.

Once the wolves on the ramparts were reduced to cold corpses, Decent sheathed his sword and looked out over the sea below them. With some strain, he could make out the cluster of lights belonging to their friendly ships. Now, the  _ Invulnerable  _ was under no threat of burning to a crisp if it sailed near Krak-Kavar’s black shores.

But this was all they could do. The threat of the  _ Predator  _ itself was now solely Beck’s concern. Decent knew the raccoon had the mettle for such a fight. He just prayed that mettle would be enough.

 

  
  


The  _ Predator  _ cut across the water, slithering over the peaks and troughs like spilled mercury. It was a vague shape amidst inscrutable darkness, and the snowstorm’s gathering intensity disguised it from sight as well, but on the testimony of the keenest pair of night-eyes in Beck’s crew, the  _ Predator  _ was out there and gaining on them swiftly. It likely aimed to come along the  _ Invulnerable’s  _ starboard side, keeping a sharp angle between themselves and the Zoohavenites as it went, eliminating any chance that the more cumbersome warship could return fire. The  _ Predator  _ would struggle to match the  _ Invulnerable  _ in a direct exchange of broadsides, but it had superior manoeuvrability, and Beck didn’t doubt that Silas meant to make that count. He wasn’t even going to try to out-pace or out-turn his opponent, not with the weight they were towing.

Beck turned to Riley, who had been released to his command by Judith, as the deck had never seen a braver or more capable orders officer, and he said, “Alright, it’s time; Silas has committed to his line, and I doubt he suspects any ruse afoot. Get the crew off that hulk we’re towing and cut it free.” 

While Riley saluted and went to pass those orders on, Lars stepped forward and squinted into the night’s snow-speckled curtain. “Some ruse,” he muttered. “The Blackwolf takes nothing but a boon when he realises he only has to fight one ship and not two.”

“What was that, Lieutenant?” Beck asked sternly.

“I said, I hope the raid on Krak-Kavar is going well, sir.”

“Have a modicum of faith,” Beck replied. “Their fate is out of your paws. But the Blackwolf’s fate? That’s another matter.”

Lars glanced down at his paws, these buttresses upon which, apparently, so much rested. He could imagine Harley saying something similar -- a less formal tone from him, though.  _ We’ll be fine, you lily-liver. Now quit your worrying and get ready to turn these filthy brigands into mince. _

And that, truly, was what had him worried; that someone for whom he cared was at mercies beyond his reach. They might triumph out here against the Blackwolf, or they might fail, and he might perish in either case. He certainly hoped he did not die. But as a close second, he hoped that Harley -- that runny-headed buffoon, who could just about manage to button his coat without Lars around -- didn’t die either.

_ Just…don’t get yourself shot, you giddy fool,  _ Lars thought.  _ I’d see us both back at Zooport to share in the reward when this goes well. _

Beside him, Beck extended his spyglass and tried to catch a hint of the  _ Predator _ ’s position, but he might as well have been trying to see through his own shut eyelids. Here and there he thought he could spot the square of a sail or the blast of a bow-wave, but they were just as likely to be mere illusions.

“Are you certain they’re out there?” Beck asked Bertram, the jaguar with those keen nocturnal eyes. Bertram leaned against the side of the ship and peered out over the waves; he didn’t request Beck’s telescope, given the fact that its lens was smaller than his whole eye.

“It’s hard to tell; they’re running without lights,” Bertram admitted. “But…no, I can see the snow on their decks. They’re out there for certain, sir—”

Suddenly, the  _ Predator  _ put any question of its position to bed when Beck saw a series of flashes, and the sea twenty feet distant from them erupted in a chain of geysers, the muted claps of the volley drifting over them a few moments later. Beck didn’t even need his spyglass now; the flares outlined the sinister silhouette of the  _ Predator _ , a dreadful all-black spectre, before the lights died and the shape vanished back into the unperceivable void.

“There’s our target,” muttered Armand, Beck’s first lieutenant, stepping up and visoring his eyes against the snow with his hoof. “40 degrees due south-west, off the aft-starboard.”

“How by the Saints can that bastard get a broadside levelled in our direction?” asked Lars. “Coming up on our stern at that angle, his guncrew shouldn’t be able to sight us.”

“He’s making use of swivel mounts,” Beck explained. “He’ll get at least another volley in before we pass out of his field of fire. We need some cover between us…”

Beck sought out Riley, who was just then coming down the aftdeck stairs. “Are we free of our weight?” he demanded.

“Aye, sir. Nothing in tow.”

Beck turned to Eli who had the helm, watching the way forward with his steely gaze and, somewhat improbably in that blizzard, smoking a wooden pipe.

“Turn to portside,” Beck commanded, “and get the ‘ _ Seastorm’  _ between us and them. We’ll use it for whatever cover it can provide.”

Eli nodded, blew smoke in a brace of jets from his nostrils, and hauled the wheel hard to port. A shuddering  _ creak  _ pealed over the ship, and the whole deck began to tilt portwise. The  _ Predator  _ no doubt saw this gambit and unleashed a hasty second barrage, aimed a little too high this time, and the cannonballs screamed overhead like a fleet of demented banshees and vanished without trace. It didn’t matter so much that the volleys were amiss; being fired on by an enemy you couldn’t shoot back at inflicted psychological damage, and that could be just as devastating as any number of bloodied casualties. Beck cast a measuring eye over the crew on his deck and saw it, lurking beneath each grim countenance. 

Fear.

That was the edge the  _ Predator _ had that they could never blunt, no matter what other disadvantages they inflicted upon it. It was still, to many of the Zoohavenites, something spawned from the Underworld. It would always strike fear in the heart, until the very moment they were victorious, and the  _ Predator’s _ pennants flew the Zoohaven blue.

This was a problem, for Beck’s strategy demanded discipline from every member of the crew. It could not tolerate a failure of willpower, and fear was willpower’s antithesis.

His plan was, in the manner of most plans successful enough to find their way into the pages of history texts, simple in concept. When the enemy boarded, they would focus on holding them amidships -- would, effectively, surrender to them the bow of the ship. Doing so gave him control over the engagement; if they simply intercepted them at the starboard gunwale, then the battle would come down to butchery, and victory would rest on the individual Zoohavenite being faster and feistier than the enemy. The better plan required the sailors to make tactical retreats at critical intervals, drawing the enemy back into waiting enfilades. To facilitate this, he had instructed his crew to listen for whistles that would direct them to fall back, and he had provisioned a number of his crew as bombardiers, equipping them with blackpowder bombs they could use to cover their retreats. If they did this successfully enough times, the Blackwolf’s undisciplined ranks would eventually crumble and break…provided every Zoohavenite, to the last mammal, held their position. Provided willpower prevailed.

The mammals on the quarterdeck could see him fixing them with a stare and began to mutter to one another. Then they jumped in surprise when Beck suddenly seized a brass bell hanging from the helm’s pedestal and shook it with mad enthusiasm, until every ear from there to the foredeck was cocked towards him. He tossed the bell aside with a clatter.

“Mammals of the Royal Navy,” he addressed them, his unnaturally loud voice heard from stern to bow. “We’re soon to find ourselves crossing blades with the most dangerous threat we’re ever likely to see not flying the colours of a hostile nation. And that means there could be no better time to be frank with one another; you’re all shitting yourselves.”

The surprised looks doubled in their confusion, and many of the crew exchanged baffled glances at the mammal nearest them, perhaps in suspicion that their captain had lost his marbles.

“Yes, that’s right,” he went on, his fervour undimmed. “Look at the mammal next to you. There’s a good chance that, right now, his britches are snug with frightened dung. I myself am very glad that I decided to wear my brown smallclothes tonight.”

A ripple of chortles passed over the assembly, and Beck grinned.

“I know many of you think the  _ Predator _ is a ghost ship, and the Blackwolf is a ghost captain, and that there isn’t a scrap of honest and woundable flesh to be found amongst his crew. But I promise you this is not true, and at this very moment the enemy is, just like you, shitting themselves. You don’t believe me? Wait until they cross the gunwale; you’ll smell them long before you see them.”

The chortles became howls of laughter, and every armed sailor began to beat a martial rhythm on the deckboards with their musket-stocks. The  _ Predator  _ issued a third and final volley, the balls of which touched down in the surge running from the  _ Invulnerable’s  _ keel, and the Zoohavenites merely jeered the  _ Predator’s  _ ineffectiveness. Once the echoes of the cannons faded, Beck gave the coda to his oration.

“So, what will it be? When word of our deeds here reaches home, what version will be on every tongue from the harbours to the heartland? Will it be the tale of the navy who was beaten by a pack of curs with shit in their drawers? Or the tale of heroes who turned every last pirate under the Blackwolf’s command into reeking carrion?”

A colossal cheer went up from every throat at this. He did not purge their fear complete; no words can so armour the mind against terror entirely. But their fervour was an indicator that Beck’s crew were willing do battle despite their apprehension, and against a sea-devil of Silas’ breed, he doubted he could ask for more.

“Alright,” Beck said, turning to his officers. “Thomas, Clementine -- you have charge of the mammals at the main deck. Samson, Dwight -- you’ll be amidships; remember on the whistle, have your musketeers ready for a volley, and fire once the whole frontline has fallen back. Caldwell, Lars -- you have the third position, just before the quarterdeck stairs. Oh, and should the Blackwolf choose to present himself in the fray, aim low and shoot his legs; we need him alive, but we surely don’t need him uninjured.”

And as these brave mammals went to execute his orders, Beck peered back to where the _Predator_ drew ever closer , and he confessed the one concern he held above all others, even beyond the dread that his hour of death might be upon him. And that concern was the black beast inside, that twisted and writhed in the lair of his brain and cried out for vengeance, not justice.

He could only pray that, when the moment came, his willpower would conquer all else, and the beast could be subdued.

 

 

“Pass the  _ Seastorm  _ by,” Silas commanded his helmswolf. “We’ll seize the  _ Invulnerable  _ by force first; there’s no chance that Hopps has a full complement aboard. Once I have their flagship, the frigate will be next.”

Yakov looked sceptical, but he held their bearing, chasing the  _ Invulnerable  _ at an angle wide enough to allow the guncrew to fire. He was far from the only wolf to harbour misgivings; as Vilka watched the two ships come towards them, he felt doubt arrest his heart, a cold chill that had nothing to do with the biting winter gale.

“Silas,” he said, trying to make sure the voice of reason did not come across in a coward’s tone, “how can you be so certain that the enemy crew is undersize? We’re a scant two hundred and fifty in number; a miscalculation here is unlikely to favour us.”

“I would have heard from Tor-Kropa if it were otherwise,” Silas said. “There was no word of her taking on a drove of recruits or mercenaries, and it’s no surprise -- what soldier of fortune would sully themselves and consent to take orders from a rabbit? No -- all she has with her are the remains of whatever crew she had left after our first encounter.”

“Likely so,” said Vilka. “And still, that could be mammals enough to present a challenge. She still has two ships to your one, as well. An all-out assault might not be your best option.”

Silas turned to face Vilka and took a menacing step closer, putting him in arm’s reach.

“This is most unlike you, Vilka. Very strange indeed. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you were afraid of this bunny.”

“She’s not some forest peasant with an apronful of turnips. She’s a Zoohaven commodore. With two rated vessels. With swords and guns aplenty.”

“So, it’s death you’re afraid of?”

“Everyone has a fear of death,” Vilka replied with a snort. “Only the foolish and the insane want for it. I don’t want to die, but I want to be captured even less. To be paraded before a gallery of judges, fitted for a halter, made to dance the hempen jig? That’s no way to pass on into Luna’s den…” Vilka took a step forwards himself, so his hushed voice reached no other ear than his and Silas’. “It’s not weakness to be craftier than your opponent. If you withdrew now, it would give you time to broker a more cunning strategy. Yes, you’d give up the fortress, but they are locked outside its walls. They’d have no choice but to wait for you to return, and if Hopps is really as weak as you say, there’ll be no trouble in taking it back.”

Silas did not reply right away. He smiled softly and placed one paw on Vilka’s cheek, almost tenderly.

“Vilka, I thank you for your wise counsel; you are as gifted a strategist as ever drew breath,” he said, stroking his ginger fur with a thumb. “Now, if you speak to me in such a fashion again, I will tear your tongue out by the roots and toss it into the sea.”

Vilka glanced down to where Silas’ thumb-claw pressed at the corner of his mouth, ready to make good on that threat. He took a wary step backwards, never again to venture a question about Silas’ command. Silas grinned with satisfaction, and turned back to the enemy ships.

At once, however, he could see something strange. The  _ Seastorm _ , which had been keeping pace behind the  _ Invulnerable,  _ began to drop back, and Silas suspected some stratagem at work. Perhaps Hopps meant to entangle him in combat with the frigate while the  _ Invulnerable  _ maneuvered to some advantageous position. Or perhaps the ship had been emptied of its crew and charged with explosives. He called to Yakov, “Steady as she goes! Keep safe range from the  _ Seastorm  _ until I know its purpose.”

That purpose was known soon enough, for what they passed was no battle-ready vessel, nor really a vessel of any description. Silas’ jaw dangled in frank surprise as he saw that the frigate was no more than three small cutters hitched together, and its mast and sails but a wooden trestle with sheets of canvas draped from it, and its cannons unmanned and naught but for show -- an imitation entire, cobbled together from scraps and spares.

Silas watched this harmless mimetism drift by them, and his claws tightened on the bulwark rail until they cut grooves into the timber. He rounded to face the coast, the world where the sky and sea were the same unreckonable darkness, and he knew that the  _ Seastorm  _ was lurking out there somewhere, and it took no genius to guess its objective if it were not here escorting its flagship.

Silas had seen a pinchbeck coin and sworn it pure gold. He’d been swindled.

The crew gathered on the port gunwale and watched as the unhitched mimic slipped past them and vanished into the black, posing no threat to them beyond an obstacle they might collide with. Yakov would have snorted in surprise, if his nostrils were not solid brass. But his attention was quickly reclaimed when he saw Silas’ face, twitching and contorted; he looked so overstuffed with hate that it might come pouring out his nose and ears.

“Yakov,” Silas growled, pointing to the  _ Invulnerable  _ ahead of them, “get us abeam that ship, and be quick about it; by fucking Luna, I swear -- we’re going to shed enough blood to bathe ourselves red.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We draw ever closer to the last frenzied battle, and a answer to whether Silas lives or dies at the end of this story...and who he's likely to take with him.
> 
> One of the things I love about writing is getting to take established phrases or text structures and manipulate them in interesting ways. I know I've used the 'from X to Y' construction before (I think 'I'm going to cut your from neck to navel' was it), and combining it with alliteration creates such a pleasing effect. 'From the harbours to the heartlands' has the same little euphonious thrill to it, and I'm sure the same technique will make an appearance in later chapters and stories. Because once you realise you've isolated a good turn of phrase, and better yet, one that you can dust off and re-use with endless creativity, you know you've taken another incremental step towards being a better writer.
> 
> Catch you all next chapter!


	23. The Ghost

They had traded their muskets over for pistols looted from the wolves they had just dispatched, as they were better suited for close quarters battle. Now Harley and his detachment sported a motley assortment of weapons, old and new -- some Zoohaven in provenance, some Porcinian, some Berseian, all stolen -- and several of them were in poor shape, dotted with rust, missing mechanisms repaired with crude, home-smithed parts. But it beat hefting a long-barreled fusil in these tight subterrane confines, and after they checked that none of the weapons was so degraded that it was likely to blow up in someone’s paw, the Zoohavenites exchanged nods and headed down the passageway. The corridor was long and dark, the dim circles of light cast from the sconces leaving ebony pools between. Anything might lurk in those forbidding recesses, but Harley found himself unafraid, for he reckoned he’d seen the worst this pack of marauding scum could muster, and it was nothing that could stand against righteous steel in service of a noble cause.

The stink of wolf was everywhere, a rank blend of decades-old urine and musk layered on the stone walls and floor, still potent enough to make one cringe. But when Harley entered the first room, leading with his pistol, there were no pirates waiting for him to empty the weapon into; it was merely storage, with nothing but empty crates piled atop one another. One of Harley’s soldiers stepped inside and raised a lantern, chasing the darkness into the corners, and when they were sure the lupine stink was not coming off living bodies, they vacated the room and moved on.

The next area was likewise untenanted, while the third was filled in with loose earth from a tunnel collapse years ago. By the fourth deserted room, a lion called Benson leaned in and hissed, “These lower floors haven’t been touched in a hundred years! We won’t find some barracks or mess hall down here;  those places will be further up. We should get clear of this hallway and find the enemy -- they’ll be staring at the naval battle in the bay, like as else.”

Harley paused and rounded on his subordinate. “Orders aren’t suggestions, Benson,” he corrected sharply, “and Hopps’ orders were to clear every floor.  _ Every  _ floor. So we don’t have some unmissed holdout come storming in on us after we think we’ve taken the fortress.”

“I was just thinking…”

“Saints preserve me,” Harley said, rolling his eyes. “And they say I’m the one who can’t shut his mouth. Now just do your duty right, or you’ll be arguing with a leather strap instead.”

The fifth doorway yielded something new -- a towering underground room with a sunken floor, large enough to keep sufficient provisions to last out a year-long siege. But the room’s purpose was not storage, for at once Harley caught a scent that pierced the odour of canine territoriality. The scent of sulphur and charcoal.

He had his pistol raised as he stepped through the door, but lowered it at once when he saw, stacked against the walls and in piles at the room’s centre, cask upon cask of looted blackpowder, too many to guess their number. The barrels bore the stamped emblems of any and every nation that kept a navy.

They had stumbled, it seemed, upon the  _ Predator’s  _ armoury.

The next sailor to enter, Robert, had his finger on his trigger, and Harley quickly slapped the pistol’s barrel downward, cautioning the deer with a severe expression. “Careful there!” he growled. “If we fire a shot in this room, they’ll see the blast from the Bell Tower at Zooport.”

“Look at it all,” Robert gasped. “There’s hundreds of them. Enough to…”

“To reduce the entire fortress to ash and cinder,” Harley pointed out, and they withdrew their firearms and lanterns to a safe distance.

“What on earth has Silas been keeping it for?” Robert wondered aloud. “He could wage war on every nation boasting a navy with this much propellant. Did the Blackwolf mean to do so, or are these just trophies?”

Harley was too busy to ponder this; his nose began to twitch, for the next room also had a disquieting reek to it. In the frame of the doorway he could see a remarkable array of sickly-coloured chemicals in various jars and carboys, and the smell of the physician’s provisions -- morphine, hydragyrum, chloroform -- was heavy in the air. Harley frowned and stepped inside.

He saw them at once and too late, dark shapes on either side of the door, a pair of murderous ostiaries waiting just for him, one with a pistol drawn, the other hefting a wooden maul whose head was run through with nailpoints. Harley locked eyes on the wolf who held the flintlock and then saw the pistol’s blackened bore come between them, saw the hammer snap down against the frizzen and sparks dance in the firing pan, and he knew that he was staring Death in the face, mere moments from feeling his otherworldly scythe pass through him and take his soul to the Afterworld. There wasn’t even time to feel fear.

The pistol flashed. Harley fell.

Or rather, he let his legs go out from under him, as gracelessly as a drunk with a stomachful of grain whiskey.

The shot passed between his ears, so close that the ball touched the ends of his close-cropped fur, and lodged in the gorge of the other wolf who let out a wounded cry and dropped his club to seize with both paws the pumping hole in his throat. The pistoleer cursed and raised his sabre instead, and Harley, lying on the floor, managed to intercept this coming stroke with the stock of his pistol. The other sailors were pushing through the doorway now to rescue him, but he did not need their intervention; his empty paw found the dropped maul, and he swung it into the pirate’s cheek with such concentrated savagery that his neck was twisted all but right around. Benson now occupied the room and slashed the other wounded wolf through the heart, while Robert extended his hoof and helped Harley to his feet.

“Go! Go and clear the remaining rooms! We’re all fine in here!” Harley called to the mammals without, although it was plain by the timbre of his voice that he was rattled; he’d courted Death before, but that was the closest he’d ever come to actually locking lips with the bony bastard.

A clatter from behind made him turn with his maul raised, and he found it raised against a strange and shrunken shape in the corner which transpired out of the shadow and revealed itself, manifestly, to be other than a wolf.

“Wait! Don’t harm me!” the non-wolf cried shrilly, its stubby arms raised in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not your enemy!”

“What the hell?” Benson muttered, squinting at this pitiful petitioner. “What is a bloody pangolin doing down here?”

“Speak up, sir,” Harley commanded, keeping the pangolin sighted down the head of his bludgeon. “Anyone in league with Silas is an enemy of mine, and we grant no clemency.”

“My name is Scaleton, and I’m not in league with anybody,” the pangolin protested. “I’m a prisoner here.”

“The Blackwolf doesn’t take prisoners,” Robert corrected, and every paw that was on a weapon tightened fractionally about its grip.

“He does when they’re doctors, you imbeciles!” Scaleton squealed, his eyes now darting back and forth like insects trapped in a pair of upturned glasses. “That’s why I’m down here, attending to a patient!”

Some figure at the back of the room, who was lying on a mattress and covered by a bedsheet, rose up, and Harley cast his maul aside and levelled his flintlock in both paws. “Whoa, move slowly now,” Harley instructed, pulling the pistol’s hammer back with an audible  _ snap  _ to ensure his order found compliance. “If you don’t want a ball in the breast, I suggest you raise your empty paws.”

The figure beneath the sheets seemed to turn its head towards Harley and then shook itself slightly that the covers slid away, and the leopard lowered his pistol and stared in utter disbelief, struck mute and motionless.

“Felix…” he said at last. “Felix…is that you?”

The panther blinked in a dosed stupor, squinting at the adumbrated forms that had transgressed upon his slumber. “Who is that?” he slurred, taking deep breaths through his nostrils. “You aren’t canids…”

Harley burst into laughter, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing. “Felix, it’s Harley! We’re here to take Silas’ fort, to put him in irons and run his crew into the sea! Saints, how is it that you’re alive and here?”

He moved forward to touch the panther, paw outstretched; he wanted to dispel the notion that Felix was some mere phantasm, in danger of evaporating into ghostly mist. And then he wished it were true, that Felix was in fact an illusion, for when the panther sat erectly in his bed, and the sheets slid completely away, it was impossible to miss that his right arm, swaddled in bandages, ended below his elbow.

Felix, the indomitable warrior, was a cripple.

Felix scowled at the horrified expression on Harley’s face and brought the leopard back from his shock by lifting a still-complete left arm and shaking the cuff and chain that had him anchored to the bed. “If you’re here to rescue me,” he snarled, “you might start by setting me free.”

“I know which key it is,” Scaleton interjected, evidently relieved that these rescuers weren’t about to kill him before they got to the business of rescuing, and he set about searching the wolf Harley had bludgeoned to death, patting him down for the keyring. He found it and passed it to Harley, who unclasped Felix’s irons. The panther sighed in relief, and then paused when he went to rub his left wrist with a right paw that no longer existed. Everyone in the room saw the gesture and turned their heads in shame. Their pity sent Felix into a rage and, brimming though he was with tonics to dull his senses and usher him to sleep, he threw his covers aside, marched to one of the slaughtered wolves and snatched up their dropped sabre in his left paw.

“I’m just as fit to fight as I ever was,” he spat at Harley’s unasked question. “What are the commodore’s orders?”

“To clear the levels, sir,” Harley replied.

Felix gave his borrowed sabre a swish, and then turned for the door. “Then let’s get to it.”

It didn’t occur to Harley to contradict him; Felix did, for one thing, outrank him, and for another, he was simply too startled to see this ghost returned from beyond the grave to suggest some alternate cause of action. But as he followed his wounded superior into the hallway, with the ridiculous Scaleton close behind and wailing about being taken to safety, and with the other dozen sailors returning from their sweep of the corridor to halt and stare in a similar attitude of shock at this unexpected revenant, one question did prove so beyond restraint tht it galloped straight out of Harley’s mouth.

“Sir, how on earth did you survive? We all saw the  _ Wavebreak  _ go up; we didn’t think anyone could endure an inferno like that.”

“I have no idea how that blaze didn’t end me outright,” Felix scathed, “nor a single notion how I’ve lived through a subsequent blizzard of brushes with death. I assume I was thrown clear of the flaming ship in the blast. We washed up on some insufferable rock in the middle of the empty sea, and the next thing I know, we’re prisoners aboard the  _ Predator  _ and being dragged to this Saints-forsaken fortress. I’ve spent virtually every moment from then until now chained to a god-damned bed.”

He came to a halt in the hallway and turned to face Harley, his mouth twisted up in rage and eyes burning like a pair of asteroids crashing upon the shore of the world’s atmosphere. “Now, if you don’t mind,” he spat, “and if you’re done asking questions, there’s a stronghold full of enemies against the Crown here, and I’d wager there’s not a mammal amongst you who can match my desire to unseam each one from breast to balls and throw their guts into the ocean! So how about you shut your mouth and ready your sword, eh?!”

A verbal barrage from such a formidable authority would have been enough to reduce any lieutenant to boneless jelly, but Harley simply stood dumbly, staring at the strands of saliva that danced in the gush of Felix’s angry breath.

Then he asked more questions.

“ _ We _ washed up on a rock? Who do you mean by  _ we _ ?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no! Poor Renato! Well...I guess qualifying as disabled carries some different thresholds in the Zootopia universe. After all, he's still got claws on his left...and teeth. I reckon Felix will be murdering bad guys for a while yet.
> 
> Thanks, as always, for the kudos and hits. Same time next week!


	24. You Die First

Snow roiled through the open window, hurled inside by the blustering wind, carpeting the floor of the bedchambers white. Kurt crossed the room and peered outside. He could see none of the ships out there in the sea, neither allies nor enemies, through the curtain of the elements. But he could hear the bark of their guns, like some pack of territorial beasts, angry and unmuzzled, and he guessed that the battle had begun in earnest. He shook his head and slammed the shutters closed.

His mind was a dissonant blend of emotions, of satisfaction and disappointment. The former, because that black bastard had almost certainly delivered his bare neck right under the executioner’s sword this time. The latter, because it was not by Kurt’s own blade that the Blackwolf would meet his end. Kurt had been nursing that murderous desire for a long time, a malignant infant whose demanding squeal never ceased, and its cries had only trebled in volume after the humiliation of their duel. It truly pained him that he would have to forsake the pleasure of standing astride that wolf while he breathed his last, watching as the colour drained out of those sallow eyes.

 _The Terror of the Latara,_ he thought bitterly, and spat on the floor. _That ought to have been my title_. The Blackwolf had been content to mount raids on lone ships, on unescorted freight, on isolated colonies -- to snatch gold from weak paws. He was just a flea on the hide of some titanic beast who was insufficiently bothered by the trickle of blood the vermin drew to merit squashing.

Kurt had always harboured grander plans -- an entire fleet of marauding ships, ten or twenty in number, ranging far and wide over this ocean and others, fearful of no country. They would sack without compunction, and leave nothing in their wake save destitution and burning debris. And what a figure he would cut, standing at the helm of his bandit navy’s flagship, dressed from head to foot in handsome black leather, a cocked cavalier with ostrich plumes adorning his crown, decorated with ivory pins and buttons fashioned from the bones of his vanquished foes. Now _that_ was a true terror.

But nonesuch had come to pass. He was not strong enough to best him one-on-one, and the rest of the Blackwolf’s crew were too cowardly to turn against him. Thus he had squandered eight years sailing under Silas’ command, and what did he have to show for it? A stake in a pile of treasure that was sealed up in their secretive fortress’s hold  and an ear permanently mangled in a brush with Sansoran privateers. That was a poor deal. Which is why Silas could blame no one but himself for Kurt’s desertion. He wasn’t about to hang around and get himself killed over Silas’ demented sense of propriety.

Hence he found himself here, in Silas’ personal solar, a room that saw little use given the amount of time its resident spent at sea. These chambers were poorly kept; the mites that crawled in the carpet were ancestors of those that had crawled there a hundred years ago, and it was the same for the spiders dangling from the coving and the woodworms boring in the furniture. And neither was it a vault drowning in an excess of gold for Silas’ personal indulgence. Only a pawful of choice treasures, artefacts and ornaments important enough to boast their own titles, ended up here, and it was just such celebrious riches that Kurt had come to claim; he’d be needing capital if he was going to marshal a squadron of vessels. And if luck was on his side, he could slip out of this miserable fortress with the loot and be well on his way to the city by the time Hopps had slain the Blackwolf and unfurled blue banners from Krak-Kavan’s flagstaffs.

He went to the far side of the room and opened an unlocked coffer wrought from precious redwood and finished with elegant silver trimming. Inside was a trove of miscellaneous valuables, any of which he could barter for the price of a decent vessel. The Kublar Ruby, a gem the size of a clamshell, last accounted for in the hold of a Porcinian merchant galleon which vanished somewhere amidst the Sunset Isles. The Idol of Abashiior, a two-foot-tall gold-plated evocation of a primitive Ja’karian war-god, which disappeared from the care of the East Latara Company while enroute to the Zooport Museum of Ancient History. The pearl pawmirror of Empress Olga. The Elfin Beads. Other stones and statues of value that numbers could scarcely account.

Also here was Nick’s surrendered sword, which Kurt picked up and examined. It was not as precious as the other items, but it would fetch a fair price thanks to the quality of the steel and the gold smithwork on its hilt.

 _Or perhaps I’ll carry it around,_  thought Kurts with a grin. _Give it a pompous name and use it to cut the eyes out of my loyal followers._ He laid it by the chest and opened a rucksack he’d brought, which he began to divest of the personal, sentimental, and ultimately worthless contents that jumbled around inside: shells and teeth and other miscellany of value to him alone, all of which he cast aside without a second thought.

Only when his paw came up with a rough dagger with a twine-wrapped handle did he pause momentarily, turning the jagged, rust-speckled blade over in his paws. It was the sole inheritance left to him by his father, some wastrel wolf he had never met who was surely long dead by now. It was the knife Kurt used to whittle, the one skill he could claim mastery of besides his capability for feral slaughter. He’d had it since before he was born.

But even this unique token was measured as valueless compared to the finances he’d need to raise a fleet, and he sunk it into the coffer’s lid with a solid _thwunk._ Then, his sack now emptied, he began to fill it with Silas’ priceless treasures, humming a lupine folktune in a fashion that would belie happiness were he a mammal with the capacity for such an emotion.

He was so engrossed in this robbery that he did not notice a dark shape enter the room on soundless feet. For a moment the apparition watched Kurt stealing the already-stolen plunder, its intentions unclear, so sequestered in the shadow of the doorway that one might have taken it for a figment of the imagination.

Then the figure stepped into the light, a drawn blade in its grasp, and its corporiality and intentions became unmistakable at once.

Kurt had the Kublar Ruby in his paw, contemplating the sensibility of smashing it into smaller pieces to make it easier to fence, when the smaller assassin landed on his back and thrust the tip of his sword down through Kurt’s right shoulder, drawing a hot spurt of blood. At once Kurt leaped up and began to thrash about wildly, roaring in shocked agony, his paws grasping madly for the assailant he could not see. He tilted his neck back and beheld Nick’s fateful face leering at him, an expression that encapsulated nothing less than a fervent desire to see the wolf dead. The blade slid an inch deeper, and the spurt became a fountain.

Still screaming, Kurt began to spin like some wild tribal dancer, whirling about in a desperate attempt to throw the fox off. Nick held on tightly, determined to keep the advantage in this brawl, but he found that his blade had caught against Kurt’s collarbone and refused to travel any deeper. Cursing, Nick sawed the blade up and down in an attempt to free it.

This gave Kurt an opportunity, and he threw himself backwards into a chest of drawers, crushing Nick with his bulk and driving the air out of his lungs. Still the fox hung on, and Kurt drove him into the cabinet again and again, until it finally burst at the joints and collapsed in a pile of wreckage. Even this could not dislodge Nick’s hold on the sword and Kurt’s scruff, though he was wounded and bruised, teeth gritted against the pain. And what luck that he did hang on, for in his vigourous flailing Kurt loosened blade from bone, and, with a cry of pure wrath, Nick threw his whole weight onto the sword and buried it deep in his foe, right down to the quillons.

At once, Kurt knew something was terribly, irreparably wrong. A wave of breath-halting ice rolled right through him, from his core to his every extremity. He reached above his head to seize the sword hilt but found his arms had become great iron weights that sagged by his side, refusing to obey his instructions. Likewise, his legs were possessed of notions contrary to his wishes, and he slumped gracelessly to his knees as they buckled under him. All the while the cold intensified, his temperature plummeting by the second, until he feared he’d soon be frozen solid, a sculpture cast in ice.

He did not notice Nick climbing down from his back, nor did he acknowledge the fox when he stood in front of him, for his vision was a blurred haze, the shapes and colours of his world running together like watered ink. He was a wretched picture, but Nick felt no pity for this beast who had mocked his father in his final moments. He felt only calm, and perhaps a shift in the world from wrong to right, an adjustment of the asomatous cosmic scales where the balance of inequity and rectitude in the world is kept.

He spotted the dagger Kurt had sunk into the chest’s lid and prised it free, then pulled the wolf’s head back to lay bare his throat. Perhaps, in that fleeting moment before his death, Kurt did recognise his executioner, for his single eye rolled in its socket until it found him and fixed him there. Nick certainly hoped the wolf knew him, for a passage had suddenly come to his mind, words he had heard quoted in his youth a hundred times, which were for him inexorably associated with the meting out of punishment, and he wanted Kurt to hear them. He leaned close to the wolf’s ear.

“And yay,” he hissed, “thine iniquity is a mark upon thee that the righteous shall know, and hide not, for justice findeth thee out and wipe thy slate pure.”

Then he put the knife to Kurt’s neck and slit his throat.

When the deed was done, and when Kurt’s heart gave its final shudder and was still, Nick knelt down on one knee to observe his handiwork. He marvelled at how, in that sightless eye, there seemed to be some glimmer, some residue, of the base hatred that had driven the wolf in life, as if his departing soul still had one foot in his body. Nick hoped it was so, for nothing pleased him more than to think that Kurt’s spirit was staring down at his own defeat, howling in helpless outrage until the ferrymammal came and ushered him into the ranks of the Dead Ship’s crew.

“I told you you’d die first,” Nick whispered, tossing the bloody dagger away. “You really ought to have listened.”

He stood up, groaning as a tide of ache washed over him. Kurt had certainly imposed some severe dues in exchange for Nick’s revenge; he felt like he’d been keelhauled. But it was a tariff he rendered gladly.

Looking about the room, he saw _Renascitur_ resting by the open chest and, hanging from a peg in the corner, his lucky coat and tricorn. He sloughed out of his borrowed coat and pulled on his old garments, smiling at the familiar texture of his coat’s fabric, of his hat’s snug fit around his crown; he felt less like the mad, vengeance-obsessed nemesis he had become of late, and something more like the rakish lieutenant, the fox with a winning smile and quivers full of wit, that he seemed to have abandoned long ago. That was good, for when he found his rabbit, he wanted it to feel, as much as was physically possible, that not a day had passed since their last meeting.

But he didn’t push the nemesis too far out of reach, for he reckoned on needing it again when the time came.

Kurt, he had promised, would be first; now, it was time to seek out the one who was last.

Then again, Judith had been adamant on bringing Silas home alive and in chains. Nick would really have to pour on the charm to get her to change her mind about that one.

“Alright Carrots,” he said, hanging his blade from his belt and making for the door. “Hold on -- I’m coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a lot of fun to write. It dawned on me that what really motivates me as an author, or at least what enables me to write faster, is variety -- making transitions between noticeably different places, characters, behaviors and describing interesting objects. Writing Silas' cream-of-the-crop treasure chest was gratifying, as was Nick's quotation of scripture, and Kurt's delusional, sociopathic daydream; basically, not having to talk about snow or cannons in anything but passing. You'd be surprised at how quickly your inspiration for describing cool things like savage northern blizzards and broadside barrages dries up. Well, I couldn't escape this chapter without mentioning blood, I guess, so it wasn't all perfect...although, writing Kurt's death was super satisfying. I'd been saving up some of those visceral details for months to celebrate.
> 
> Thanks again for checking in. There's about 4 chapters of this story remaining, and the next one is shaping up to be a real word-Goliath (by my own standards, that is; I haven't a single notion how others fire out chapters of 5000 words or more on anything like a regular basis). Bear with me if it takes a little while. In the meantime, kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	25. Silas' Last Stand

The two ships shuddered as they both discharged their batteries at point blank range, hammering one another’s gunwales to splinters, swallowing each other in mutual choking thunderheads of cannonsmoke. On the _Invulnerable’s_ deck, the crew crouched at their stations and strained their ears over the groans and cries of those felled by the waves of timber shrapnel, flinching when they heard the sizzle of grappling lines arcing over their heads and the creak of tightening ropes. They called cautions to one another through the cordite fog and the wind-whipped snow. They waited.

And then the wolves came pouring over the gunwale like some terrible tide breaking upon the ship’s deck, and, by no greater light than the ship’s lanterns and the intermittent spark of muzzle flashes, a battle destined for the pages of history began to unfold.

Silas’ Last Stand.

The deck, almost at once, became a seethe of hacking and slashing -- of blades singing their soprano notes as they crashed together, of the guttural reports of pistols, of barked insults and wounded screams -- presided over by the rapid bark of musket fire exchanged over the bulwarks. The pirates were struggling to secure a foothold anywhere aft of the main deck, where many of them were shot down, or had no sooner vaulted the gunnel before they were impaled upon the defender’s thrusting bayonets. The bow was a different story; the wolves seized control of this with relative ease and were soon engaged in vicious close-quarters combat on the forecastle steps.

Standing on the quarterdeck amidst a cohort of musketeers targeting the shooters on the _Predator_ , Beck watched the pirates consume the _Invulnerable’s_ foredeck like ants on a carcass, watched them blast open the barred door and pour into the lower deck. This, however, was all part of his plan -- the pirates were now committed to an arduous push along the length of the ship, a battle of attrition against mammals who were better armed, drilled and organised. They would bleed them dry before they so much as set foot amidships.

That was not to say everything was going according to plan; a number of daring wolves had scaled the _Predator’s_ rigging and swung across to the heights of the _Invulnerable’s_ masts, intending to fire down or drop bombs on the unsuspecting defenders. But these cunning attackers were deftly countered by the sharpshooters Beck had positioned on the main top, the platform atop the main mast’s lowest yard, who were all armed with the Zoohavenite’s finest weapons -- Gassel muskets with rifled barrels, which, although they tended to foul quickly, could strike a bullseye at fifty paces as easily as they could at five. These snipers ceased picking targets on the deck and shot the enemy above them out of the rigging, knocking them off their perches and sending them plummeting, like sacrificial victims cast off a cliff-edge, to splash against the deck far below.

Far less dismissible were the pirates who slithered down the _Invulnerable’s_ hull and made egress into the ship’s lower decks directly through its open gunports -- a daring move, and one calculated to halt the _Invulnerable’s_ ability to use its cannons. The guncrew did not have MacHorn governing their actions, and their times had slipped, but they still able to unleash their broadsides fractionally quicker than the _Predator_ could. However, after their third volley, while the canons were recoiled, this gang of armed pirates hurled an all manner of crude explosives into the gunports and then entered with knives and hatchets, looking to lend muscle to the assault rushing down from the weatherdeck.

“Have you ever seen pluck to match it,” Beck breathed, looking at the invaders dangling crazily beside his ship. As well-manned as his gundecks were, the numbers he was seeing made him nervous -- a single lucky enemy might find the opportunity to kill his surgeon, or worse, enact some suicidal gambit and blow up the _Invulnerable’s_  powder stores. Not to mention that all the time his cannoneers spent with sword or pistol in paw was time they were not using to wreak devastation on the _Predator._ He turned and gestured to a contingent of his reserves, saying, “You, get yourselves below and kill those bastards on our gundeck. The rest of you, target whoever you can see outside our hull and kill them!” Then he drew one of his pistols and fired it, putting the ball through one of the intruding wolves’ head and sending him sliding down the keel and into the sea. In short order, whichever pirates yet hung on the outside where struggling to slip through the ports to escape Beck’s crushing enfilade.

While Beck was busy at this, Thomas was shedding blood at the frontline, wrestling with a muscular brawler whose fur was daubed with coloured woad, more primitive savage than buccaneer. Their blades were crossed before themselves and their free paws grappled in a frantic contest of strength. It was then that Thomas realised that the pirates, who might have lacked martial discipline but had raw viciousness in abundance, were beginning the break the line. He knew he had to sound the retreat and began to struggle more desperately with his barbaric foe, who was trying to gouge out the sheep’s eye with his thumb. Luckily, a comrade stepped in to aid him, sinking his bayonet into the wolf’s breast; even then, the relentless brute continued to snarl and claw at them until Thomas freed a dagger from his belt and buried it between the wolf’s ribs. He threw his slain opponent to the floor and put the whistle to his lips, blowing a piercing note before screaming, “Fall back! Fall back to the main deck! Bombardiers, provide cover!” A second later, there was a succession of blasts that shook the ship and hurled up a billow of dust, and the beleaguered front line turned and fled for the rear of the ship, ready to re-cement their foothold and repel the surging enemy a second time.

Things did not proceed so smoothly on the starboard front.

Clementine sounded the retreat in the same manner, but a moment after his bombardier lit his fuse, a shot slapped him on the shoulder and spun him like a ballerina, knocking the bomb out of his hand and sending it rolling back towards his own side. It went off with an ear-splitting _boom_ , and the four or five sailors without the reflexes to dive for cover had their limbs blown clean off. The blasts, meant to speed the retreat, had stalled it instead.

Lars spotted this failure in the plan, and the jackal rushed forward to lend support, calling on those around him who were brave enough to follow his example. Beck saw those soldiers abandoning their posts, and he leaned hard against the quarterdeck rail and cried, “Lars! Return to your position!” It was to no avail; his words were carried away by the savage wind, and even if Lars had heard them he would have disregarded the command, for all he could hear was the hammer of his pulse in his ears and his conscience crying out that it was wrong for others to die with him standing idle, martial order be damned.

He and his group came to a halt at the main deck stairs in time to see the battered remnants of the line come spilling down the steps. They were followed closely by a clutch of wolves who aimed their pistols, and who would have shot the fleeing Zoohaventies in the back were it not for Lars’ impromptu shot-line, which targeted them with merciless accuracy. Their ball-ridden corpses were knocked backwards off their feet or went crashing down the stairway onto the snow-covered main deck. Lars went to one knee to recharge his musket, oblivious to one wolf who sighted him from behind a capstan. A split second before he fired, a sniper’s ball whistled out of nowhere and struck the enemy’s musket square on its lock plate, blasting the weapon in two and ending up buried in the wolf’s heart. Meanwhile, the bloodied survivors of the foredeck melee managed to reform and continued pouring lead into whatever targets were foolish enough to present themselves through the dark and the flying snow.

Despite the noisy and frantic chaos, the Zoohaventie side seemed to have the advantage. It was surprising, then, that nobody was watching the _Predator_ closely. That nobody saw the Cerberus cannon rotate slowly on its base until it was staring malevolently at the _Invulnerable_. That no one saw three iron balls rolled down their bores.

They all saw what happened next.

The Cerberus unleashed a synchronised roar of such potency that every pair of ears was ringing in the wake of its furious announcement. All three shots screamed through the air before crashing into the _Invulnerable’s_ main mast, demolishing its lowest yardarm. The snipers who weren’t slain outright were pitched off their vantage point and fell to the deck or the sea, a bare moment before the whole groaning yard cracked in two, and the beam, sail, and all its entangled rigging broke loose of the mast and came thundering down on the helpless sailors below, hurling up a roiling cloud of smoke, dust and frost.

Watching the destruction, Beck felt the muscles in his cheek tighten, his teeth squeaking as his jaw clenched. He ought to have anticipated the leverage that the Cerberus, even without flaming shot, could confer on the engagement. Now they were holding on to order by a few quickly unravelling threads, and if he failed to marshal his charges now, there was no telling what kind of ungoverned slaughter this battle would descend into. He turned to his first lieutenant.

“Armand, you have charge of the helm,” he said, his voice as sharp and cold as a razor. “If any wolf so much as puts a foot on the quarterdeck, I’ll have you court martialed.”

“Where are you going?” Armand demanded, but his question was aimed at a fleeting back as Beck mustered whatever muscle he dared requisition from his last defensive post and plunged headlong into the fray.

They arrived on the main deck, where an otherworldly calm had descended amidst the impenetrable smoky shroud, a momentary caesura in the otherwise constant wail of gunshot and swordblows. In the corner of his mind, Beck recalled the Blackwolf was lurking somewhere in that charnel fog, and that he was under orders to make his arrest in the midst of this turmoil. The endeavour of sparing one particular life out of the chaos, he dared to confess, seemed insane, and while he knew he would hate himself for a failure of duty, it would be honest to say that, if he spied that night-black devil down his own weapon sights, there was a good chance he wouldn’t be aiming for his legs.

Something called to them horribly out of the mist and a tottering body stumbled forward, a wolf with a faceful of splinters, some easily three inches long. He reached out and moaned for mercy, and was by all ignored, for behind this wretch other, more threatening shapes were beginning to emerge, fliting and cavorting like some sinister simulacrum of a child’s shadow-puppet theatre, all its folk-devils come terribly to life.

Then the fog lit up with sparking pistols, and the calm was obliterated as the battle raged once again.

The collapsed mainsail had created a strange landscape of white fabric hills, and from underneath those canvas undulations the tip of a bayonet emerged and opened a gash. Lars peered out of this opening, dazed but miraculously uncrushed by the deluge of debris that had come thundering down around him when the yard gave way. He was not, however, in a much improved position; he could see figures moving around him, leaping over him, and as soon as one of them noticed him lying on the ground here, he’d be dead. But he forced his trembling heart to quell, and promised himself that he would not die here, this black night, alone and far from home. His paws tightened around his musket.

When one wolf did pause standing over him, he was staring directly down a black bore, and with a sharp crack Lars sent a ball through his chin and out the top of his head, tossing a geyser of gore into the air. Lars rose up out of the fallen sail and seized the wolf by his lapels, sheltering behind his dead flesh. He felt the body buck and shudder as two pirates stepped forward out of the murk and fired their flintlocks. Lars had no loaded weapon to shoot in return, so instead he hefted his musket by its stock and threw it like a javelin, lodging it deep in one wolf’s stomach. The other pirate lunged for him, trying to cut Lars’ head off, but he put the corpse between them so that both wolves became clumsily entangled like a pair of drunken dancers. Then the jackal crouched and slashed his foe’s ankle with his sabre, sending the screaming wolf toppling backward onto the wreckage of the collapsed sail.

Lars meant to step forward and finish him off, but he suddenly realised just how isolated he was; the smoke was starting to clear, and whichever Zoohavenites had followed him to the battle amidships had either been killed or retreated and were nowhere to be seen. He had to get back to his allies.

He started to run, but slipped on the wet fabric underfoot, landing awkwardly on his elbow. With a growl he pushed himself back onto his feet, but found his legs unwilling with their support. Something was wet in is throat, also. That’s when he looked down and saw the hole in his chest.

He hadn’t felt the shot that struck him on the shoulder, nor the searing pain when the ball burst out the other side. But he could see it now, the unfurling red petals of a blooming rose on his breast. He turned and looked around in dumb shock before he staggered backward and landed in a heap against the starboard bulwark, blood running out of his wound into his cupped paws. And there he sat, his battle over, his duty to king and country paid, simply asking over and over, “Harley? Where are you?”

The reinforced line had managed to stall the enemy advance, but they were starting to run low on shot and dry powder, and Beck decided it was time to see how the enemy handled Zoohavenite swordcraft. “Ready your blades for close combat!” he roared, loud enough to carry over the intermittent gunblasts and the screaming wounded. He raised his blade to the sky, a symbol to rally around, and then, without thought for his own safety and an impassioned scream on his lips, he vaulted his cover and rushed into the smoke, his soldiers following him closely.

He may have been short, but Beck had a lifetime’s experience making equal or outclassed opponents out of larger foes; he knew for certain the maxim _the bigger they are, the harder they fall_ was bankable truth. The first wolf who charged him, a deadly pike in both paws, must of thought he’d come across an easy kill and thrust his weapon at the raccoon. His delight was quickly turned into surprise when Beck effortlessly snipped the speartip from his opponent’s weapon, leaving blunt end of the haft to stave into the ground. That surprise was quickly exchanged for agony when Beck stepped between his legs and cut him deeply on the groin. Then he slew the next wolf, and the one after, and the one after, and was soon stacking bodies with single-minded efficiency, consumed by the beast inside who’s thirst for blood could not be slaked.

All around him Zoohavenites were fighting with equal zeal or dying in the process, and in the midst of that anarchic boil Samuel spotted Lars propped against the gunwale and rushed to him, sliding to a halt on is knees and laying a paw on the wounded jackal’s shoulder.

“Hey my lad. Are you alright? Can you stand?” he asked, but there was no response save Lars’ inane mantra, wheezed through bloody lips, and Samuel guessed he was looking at a doomed mammal. His lip twitched; he had a fondness for the officers who did not mince words, and this scarred, old lieutenant had known no other method of discourse than to speak his mind. He didn’t deserve to die here like this.

Something moved in Samuel’s periphery, and with a snarl he dodged a thrust at his head and rose against his would-be murderer, marlinspike in his clenched fist. He brought it around in a fearsome arc and plunged it into the wolf’s head, bursting his skull like a delicate eggshell. He kicked the bleeding wreckage away, screaming, “You bastard spawn of whores!” Then he lunged at a second wolf who was menacing Beck, knocking the pirate to the ground and pounding on his chest like a blacksmith upon an anvil.

“That’s good work, Samuel!” Beck hollered, stepping past him to engage the next wolf who waved two daggers in a complicated pattern, looking at once practiced and unhinged. The two began to slash at one another, Beck dancing around his thrusts and the wolf blocking each one given in return. A longer engagement may have borne out who was the better duellist, but the Cerberus suddenly interrupted when it chopped the deck open with a second volley; a trio of soldiers rushing to Beck’s aid were pulverised in an instant, and the blastwave threw the entangled combatants off their feet.

Beck landed with the pirate on top of him, his legs trapped under the wolf’s weight. The pirate raised his blades again and brought them down towards Beck’s head, but the racoon managed to squirm away from one dagger, which stabbed through the deck and became trapped, and put the point of his sword through the palm of the wolf’s other paw, skewering it down to the hilt. If the wolf cared, it did not show; he simply committed to shredding Beck with his fangs, snarling and snapping in his face, the sour reek of his breath pluming in Beck’s nose.

“You fucking savage!” the raccoon spat, and he reached up with his claw and raked it across the wolf’s eyes, stunning him for long enough to twist his blade, still impaled through the wolf’s paw, against his temple. With a sharp thrust he put the tip into the wolf’s brain and rolled the body off of himself, seizing his blade’s hilt in both paws and struggling to yank it out of the wolf’s head, muttering curses on finding it stuck fast.

Suddenly, something struck Beck on the back of the head and knocked him off his feet. His vision blurred and bled of its colour. His ears rang. He tasted blood. He scrambled away, unaware of what direction he was travelling but knowing if he failed to move he’d be killed. His senses began to return, and he realised a wolf had struck him with the poll of his axe, the same wolf who was now advancing on him with the axe facing bladewise, ready to carve his skull into mirrored halves. Still lying on the floor, he seized his sword’s handle and desperately tried to kick the corpse clear, feeling the blade sliding free by small degrees.

But then, a second before this pirate could take advantage of Beck’s exposure, a shape barged him off his feet and threw him to the ground, the axe spinning away and coming to rest right by Beck’s paw. Before the wolf could scramble to his feet, looking up in alarm, Beck brought the axe down on his skull, cleaving through bone and brain until the edge buried in the deck beneath.

The shape revealed itself to be Riley, who undergone a shocking transformation; with his tunic slashed by enemy swords and his cream wool dyed red by enemy blood, this risible sheep had been replaced with a terrifying battlefield marauder, a force to be reckoned with. He fixed Beck with an iron gaze before extending a hoof, saying, “Are you alright, sir?”

Still hesitant to accept this blood-spattered warrior as the same ram of prior acquaintance, Beck reached out slowly and took his offer of assistance. “Yes, I’m alive,” he said. “They’ll have to try harder than that to kill me—”

Riley’s face exploded.

It was a peculiar thing to witness -- a broad, black crater suddenly opening in his forehead; a sickening gout of dark blood spewing into the air; one of his eyes rolling wallward, as if the force of impact had dislodged it and made it spin freely. The pair of mammals both collapsed to the ground, Riley’s bleeding head landing directly in Beck’s lap. The raccoon stared at him in revolted shock, and then looked up to find where the shot had come from.

There he was. Standing no more than a few yards away. Staring down the barrel of a smoking silver pistol.

Silas. The Terror of the Latara. The monster. The murderer of Beck’s wife and child.

The stories told of this barbarous demon had failed utterly to do him justice, to capture the sheer gravity of his wickedness -- especially as he appeared now, shrouded by ice and cannonsmoke, his black fur and leather painted with streaks of red so that he looked like some onyx sacrificial altar-stone, the pedestal of heathen cultists awash with innocent blood. Not even his obvious injuries -- the ample bandages around his arm and legs -- could detract from the thought that this was one wolf immune from pain and death. Beck had swept his chest of medals, but Silas still seemed to recognise him as a mammal of authority; or, perhaps, he simply saw more meat for his claws to rend.

“A racoon?” he sneered, tucking his spent pistol into his sash and twirled his glittering sword, carving a silver lemniscate in the air about him. “An overgrown rat. Not as contemptible as a rabbit...but not by much.”

Beck felt his heart begin to hammer in his chest. He seized the handle of his sword once again and laboured to pull it free of the wolf’s head with something more like desperation.

“Did you ever dream this was how you would die?” Silas asked, treading blood and snow underfoot as he stalked forward. “Stand up. Stand up and meet death on your feet. It’s the only mercy you shall receive.”

Beck’s sword at last pulled free with a spew of black blood, and he drove it into the path of Silas’ blade a mere moment before his head was loped in two. He rolled backwards, coming to his unsteady feet just in time to parry a second lightning-quick strike, then a third and fourth. His head was still spinning from the blunt trauma he’d suffered earlier, his vision reeling drunkenly; there seemed to be three Blackwolves, three shimmering swords, and he knew if he tried to counter the ones untrue then he’d be instantly cut in half, razor through a candlestick. He needed to create some distance, to put some barrier between him and his foe until he recovered.

He ducked a fifth slash that swept over his eartips and snatched up a pawful of bloody snow with his left, hurling it at Silas’ eyes. It brought him a fraction of a second, long enough to retreat from the duel and to slump against the main mast, trying to force clarity upon his spiralling world with great heaving breaths. Silas wiped the slush out of his vision and leered at Beck.

“Looks like I was mistaken,” he said. “You don’t deserve a warrior’s death. You deserve to die like all prey -- with a predator’s fangs in your scrawny throat!”

Silas advanced upon him again, swiftly and dangerously, like a black thunderbolt spat out of a cloud of demonic vapour.

Beck’s vision, however, was beginning to clear. The trinity of dark wolves was becoming a singularity once more.

Beck ducked, and _Nihilo_ carved a splintered crescent in the mast behind his head. Then he delivered his own brutal swipe; it did not touch flesh, but cut through the leftmost of Silas’ braids, sending the plait tumbling to the ground. Silas ran a paw through his tattered fur and then turned viciously to Beck, who sneered and said, “Fangs in my throat, hey? It looks as if your bite can’t equal your bark”

Silas’ eyes blazed as if the heat of his fury were making them boil. He roared and advanced again, landing blow after furious blow on the racoon. Their feet kicked flurries of snow up from the deck as they danced with calculated precision, knocking the mounds of white masonry over, like a pair of giants duelling amidst a town and bringing the architecture to ruin with each indifferent step. There was no denying the Blackwolf’s speed or skill or strength, nor his advantage in height; the blows that rained down on Beck seemed to be falling directly on top of his head and were a difficulty to parry well. But being diminutive had its advantages, too, and Beck proved it when he grabbed a ruck of the sail that covered the deck and yanked it, upsetting the ground beneath Silas and clumsying his footwork. Then he lunged at the Blackwolf’s leg, looking to skewer his shin and put him out of the fight completely.

But his thrust struck nothing but air; with feline grace, Silas swiftly widened his stance that Beck’s sword passed between his legs, then lashed out and kicked him square in the chest, lifting him off the ground. He landed bodily in a tangle of ropes by the portside gunwale, where the fractured end of the mast’s yard had come down and now tottered over the ship’s side. The impact stole the breath out of his lungs and sent his sabre spinning out of his claw, too far away to be recovered. He tried to stand, but his chest felt as if someone had reached inside and balled up all his organs, and he fell backwards onto his rump.

Silas leered at this evident weakness. “This was always going to end one way,” he laughed and advanced with his sword raised, the wind singing as it passed over _Nihilo’s_ unmatched sharpness. A Zoohavenite hog, seeing his captain in danger, came running between the two with a brace of hatchets raised, and was then suddenly missing the top of his head, _Nihilo_ cutting through bone and brains with the ease of a sharpened axe through larch. The pig tipped over, his brains slopping out of the goblet of his sundered skull.

With those few bought seconds, Beck looked about for a weapon and realised he was sitting next to the corpse of one of his bombardiers -- the unfortunate ox had been shot before he could throw his explosives, and he still gripped one ceramic orb in his bloody hoof, frigid with death and the searing cold. Beck seized the dead soldier's flint and tried to prise the bomb free, but his grasp on it was tighter than a clove hitch, and in desperation he had to abandon it for the only other tool close to paw -- a discarded grappling hook, still knotted to its length of rope.

“Is this really the best you can do?” Silas asked disappointedly, frowning as Beck brandished the grapple’s barbed curves. “You wave a hook at me? This would be insulting if you were a worthy opponent.”

“Stop stalling, you coward,” Beck growled back, alarmed that he could taste blood again. “If I’m so unworthy, why haven’t you carved me like a cooked fowl?”

“I’ll redress that currently,” Silas said.

They were both so engrossed in their respective moments -- Beck’s dismayed anger that the entire Harrington family would meet their ends on the same villain’s sword; Silas’ twisted and indulgent gloating against an inferior opponent -- that neither saw the small feline pounce until the very moment it alighted on Silas’ shoulders, wrapped its paws around his neck, and sunk its fangs into the flesh of the wolf’s ear.

Joshua.

At once, Silas abandoned his torture of the racoon and thrashed about for the margay with his empty paw, roaring as blood coursed down his cheek and brow from his ruined auricle. Beck watched in arrant shock as the slender feline clung on doggedly, clawing and biting whatever unguarded flesh he could find. And then Beck realised he was being bought precious seconds, and they would only hold their worth if he did something, and quick…

An idea struck him, and he sparked his flint and lit the bomb, sealed as it was in the bombardier’s grip. Then he pushed the ox’s frozen arm as close to the ship’s gunwale as was possible. Finally, still holding the grapple, he rushed his hated foe, who had caught Joshua by the tail and swung him into the floor like a flail. The cat let out a truncated yowl and then lay still; he did not see Silas’ blade raised above him, ready to plunge downward and nail him to the deck through his tender heart.

That’s when Beck slipped between Silas’ legs and drove two of the grapple’s pointed flukes right through the meat of his calf, at the very same moment the fuse burned down inside the bomb’s casing and detonated its powder, tearing a hole in the side of the ship and sending the vast portion of the yard, around which the grapple’s rope was tangled, tipping over the edge and plunging into the sea.

The next few terrifying moments of Silas’ life happened very quickly, far too fast for any reaction on his part that might have kept him the advantage. First, he looked down madly at Beck lying underneath him, the haft of the grapple still in his paw. Then, the rope snapped taut and ripped Silas off his feet, bringing him down with a bone-jarring crash and reeling him across the deck like an insect snared on a chameleon’s tongue. Silas stared wide-eyed at the breach he was being drawn to, beyond which lurked nothing but lungfuls of black water and a grave on the ocean floor. By luck or skill he managed to bring his sword down on the rope at the last, severing it cleanly through. His anchor vanished into the deep without him, but its inertia could not be so easily escaped, and Silas only managed to divest himself of his speed when he slammed into the gunwale, hard enough to rattle the bulwark timbers.

Beck stared at this in wonder, his jaw hanging open; to see this monster go from a blood-hungry leviathan to a minnow on the end of a reeling line was quite the sight to digest. Then he came to his senses and knelt by Joshua’s side. The margay was unconscious, but he still had breath in him. Then he quickly rushed to the portside, where Silas was groping numbly for his sword and instead found Beck’s bootheel when he brought it down on the back of the wolf’s paw, pinning it in place. Silas hissed and stared up at this prey who had brought him low. The blood from his wrecked ear was running down his brow and into one closed eye, but the other was wide open, and it blazed like a heated brand, red-hot with disbelief.

“To be killed by a racoon…” he muttered. “Luna must truly be absent tonight to let something so shameful transpire.”

Beck returned his look coldly before reaching down, seizing a fistful of Silas’ braids and wrenching his head close, his breath steaming fiercely against the wolf’s muzzle. He laid his blade against Silas’ throat.

“My name is Beck Harrington. Captain of the Zoohaven Royal Navy. Husband of Anne-Marie Harrington. Father of Grace Harrington. The two most beautiful girls ever born onto this earth…”

He began to twist the braids tightly. A tremor ran the length of his blade.

“I didn’t see them die. I wasn’t there. The last time I saw them, they had been shipped to Zooport in coffins, and by then they had been cold and dead a long time. My daughter’s throat had been slit, right to the bone. My wife—” A tear swelled at the corner of Beck’s eye, slithered down his muzzle, fell of the end of his nose. “—had been struck by a spiked cudgel. Her head was in pieces. I couldn’t even recognise her…”

Whether intentionally or by mistake, Beck’s blade pressed and cut the flesh of Silas’ neck, deep enough to draw a rivulet of blood that trickled down his chest.

“They died because you knew Bannonport was undefended. They died because your sole claim to notoriety is in snatching away the lives and livelihood of those who can not fight back. Well, they’re here with me now. I carry them always in my heart. And they’re begging me for revenge.”

Beck may as well have been speaking to a carved statue, for the wolf’s face was blank and emotionless. And when Beck was done, and the charges were laid before Silas’ feet, he only smiled cruelly.

“Kill me now, then,” he hissed. “Kill me now, or another hundred families just like yours will perish. But you should know that nothing can stop the consequences of natural order. Your Anne-Marie? Your Grace? They did not suffer and die because I am evil. They suffered and died because they were weak…”

The beast behind Beck’s amber eyes was in paroxysms; it writhed and coiled and shrieked that it had waited ten long years for this moment. That every second this abomination drew breath was an insult to all that was fair and right. That he owed his family to do it.

Do it. Do it.

 _Do it_.

And then Beck let go of Silas’ braids, and took the sword away from his throat, and stepped away from the wretched maniac who had stripped him of everything he’d ever held dear. Because there was no beast; it was merely himself. And he had sworn to another that when this moment came, Silas would not fall by one mammal’s sword to slake one mammal’s revenge. As great as it pained him, he would make sure that the Blackwolf hung in the name of justice, and on behalf of all who had ever suffered by his wicked will.

This world had taken so much from Beck. It would not take the value of his word as well. He squared his shoulders.

“Silas Rourke,” he said, his voice as hard as tempered steel, as cold as an arctic sunset. “By the power vested in me by the nation of Zoohaven, for your numberless crimes against its and other’s decent and peaceful citizens, you are under arrest. You will return to Zooport in irons, you will await trial at the Court of Law, and when the Crown finds you guilty, by the fucking Saints, you will hang until you’re dead.”

Silas began to laugh, a croaking chuckle borrowed direct from a melodrama playwright’s vision of a conniving devil. “Is your hollow honour supposed to impress? A shroud, to hide your cowardice. A real warrior -- a _predator_ \-- wouldn’t hesitate--”

The _crack_ of Beck’s pommel driving into Silas’ muzzle was loud, even above the fading racket of the battle. His head snapped back against the boards and lolled forward, blood oozing from both his nostrils.

“And I hope that aches all the way to the gallows,” Beck spat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good lord. This was not an easy chapter to write -- for it's size, for it's complexity, for my exhausted supplies of unique ways to describe sword combat on the deck of a ship. I imagine I could spend forever fiddling and adjusting this one and never be quite happy with it. 
> 
> But it does have its merits: for one thing, take that you fucking black-furred bastard. It was so pleasurable to write the conclusion of the fight, and I think I'm going to relish everything that comes next just as much. And I hope it's reasonably easy to follow, as well. The problems, then, are the same ones the bedevil any enormous action sequence -- balance. There's an excellent series Cinefix do on youtube, and one episode, '5 Brilliant Moments of Action', does an exceptional job of identifying the successes and deficits of certain action scenes. They point out that a good action scene (when it's one of ridiculous scale) needs to be impressive in scope, but has to be made up of smaller, more personal moments that the audience can engage with. And these personal moments have to be properly ordered and geographically sensible so the audience knows what's going on all the time. And they should connect with and extend the characterisation and themes that have already been established. And the flow of the action needs to follow a believable trajectory, preferably with moments of appropriate climax. And the set pieces need to be creative. And so on. Well, doing all that is a bloody challenge to even a practiced writer, and trying to do it in half-hour stints between work and having to cook dinner is...well, let's say 'less than ideal'. Nope, actually -- let's say 'fucking annoying'.
> 
> But it's done. Silas has been an essential element of this story's plot for a long time now, and this surely marks his downfall. Which means we can get to the next item on the agenda -- two lovers who've been separated for too long.
> 
> I didn't mention it when it happened, but the whole Of Salt and Steel story passed 100,000 words a while ago. That's an awful lot. A man might want to take a nap after so much committed hammering on the keyboard.
> 
> Here's to 100,000 more.


	26. Whole

Cornered in the tower’s highest floor, only one of the four wolves was brave or foolish enough to bring his loaded pistol to bear on the Zoohavenites as they came crashing through the door. He’d scarcely put his thumb to the hammer before Judith’s own shot struck his chin and exited through the back of his head. He looked dumbly at his killers before a second, heavier calibre ball cracked into his forehead and collapsed him into a bloody heap. The four remaining loaded weapons were trained on the other three pirates, their own pistols partly-loaded or aimed harmlessly away.

“You can die here,” Judith said, a fresh pistol already in her other paw, “or you can throw down your weapons. Make your choice and make it quickly.”

The wolves exchanged nervous glances before one cast his pistol and sword to the floor, and the other two shortly copied his example. Unarmed, a broad, slab-browed buffalo stepped forward and tied their arms behind their backs.

“Gruber, take them down to the pier,” Judith instructed. “We have one last corner to check for pests.” Then she lead her four remaining marines to the fourth floor, spearheading the attack herself; she moved like the avatar of a hell-tempered war-god, fire in her blood and ash on her breath.

She came to an open doorway and saw a wolf standing in the arch’s shadow, a sword hanging by his side, and she pointed her loaded pistol at him with unwavering aim.

“Easy there,” she warned icily, her finger tight on the trigger. “Throw that weapon aside and surrender, or I’ll happily pass your sentence here and now.”

The wolf complied, drawing his sword slowly and tossing it behind him before rising both paws into the air. Then he stepped forward into the fringe of the corridor sconce, and in doing so blew the fire in Judith right out, and her pistol, her trembling pistol, went by her side.

The figure standing before her was no wolf.

Judith was silent, her tongue transmuted to lead in her mouth. It was instead one of her marines, a lion named Ashton, who spoke first, stepping forward and peering at the shape before gasping, “Blow me down...is that Nick? Is that Nick Wilde?”

And so it proved to be. At once Judith’s company began to laugh from shock and amazement, for it was Nick Wilde, the Redcoat, the scoundrel, thought by all to be obliterated in a firestorm...yet standing here, as if some necromancer dragged his soul and body back from whatever world waits after death. Standing here as if he were really alive.

Standing here. He was really alive.

In his jubilation, and as a testament to their collective shock, Ashton clapped an enormous paw on Judith’s slight shoulder -- an inappropriate gesture given their difference in rank. But she scarcely noticed, and held impossibly still, as a likeness hewn from marble. She was terrified that, if she so much as flinched, the resulting ripples might shake this fragile dream, and her love would dissolve back into the immaterial ether. It was a long moment before she found the courage to breathe so much as a word, testing the truth her eyes were telling her.

“Ashton?” she said to the lion. “Take the others and go to the floor below. Harley may require reinforcements.”

This order ought to have perplexed. Why would they not first sweep this floor for an enemy presence? Why would the commodore risk being left unguarded in dangerous territory? Why might she want a moment alone with the fox? But a true marine is bred not to entertain such inquisitiveness; instead, he nodded smartly, ordered the others to withdraw, shot Nick a cheeky grin and salute, and left through the doorway.

This left the pair facing one another, in this room where time was frozen, or had perhaps been annihilated completely. If one had peered at an hourglass, one would have seen the sand suspended in midair, each grain fixed absolutely in place. A world where a second was an aeon -- where a minute contained everything from the breath of creation to the day of judgement.

“Is that really you?” Judith asked quietly.

He replied by way of a smile.

Then time righted itself, the sand clattered in the bottom bell, and the two ran into each other’s arms.

Judith buried her face in Nick’s chest, great rivers of her tears already soaking into his fur, her arms about his waist and pulling him to her tightly, as if she wished the boundaries of his being would dissolve and make them one flesh and fur. He likewise held her tightly, like buoyancy or anchorage. As if a priceless treasure he’d given up for lost had, defying every reasonable explanation, come back to him.

When she finally managed more than a sob, her words choked her, catching in her throat. “Oh Saints, Nick, I thought you were dead!”

“So did I, for a while,” he responded, his own voice trembling.

She let him go so that her palms could splay against the fur of his belly, her fingertips pressing into his skin. “But you’re not! You’re alive, and you’re here, and I...I can't believe this is real. I’ve dreamed of this moment before -- oh, time after time I’ve been here in my own head -- but it’s never been more than the stuff of imagination…” She reached up and placed an open paw over his chest, and a fresh wave of pure delectation rolled over her as she felt his heart’s rapid cadence against her palm. “This isn’t a dream?”

“It’s not, Carrots,” he said, smiling. “It’s no fantasy. I’m solid. I’m whole…” His smile faltered, and he added, “Well...I’m almost whole…”

A wry joke could do little to balm the horror that shadowed Judith’s exuberance, and she drew her paw away from his pulse to rest one finger gingerly on the outside of his eyepatch, feeling her own heart plunge as she did. The truth that Nick was alive and breathing came in the company of an unwelcome other; something horrific had befallen him.

“Nick...what happened to you?”

“I fought the Blackwolf,” he said bitterly. “I fought him, and I lost. And that’s not all…”

He stopped himself, a moment before he tore open the floodgates and let loose the storming torrent of hatred and misery he’d been keeping dammed up inside. Looking down into her purple eyes, which stared back at him with such focused intensity, he realised that he owed both himself and her more than to drown in his anguish. She could not sweep away the terrors and torments of his past.

“Judith,” he said softly, brushing a tear from the corner of her eye, “in the last month I’ve brushed with death too many times -- literally, too many times to count on my fingers.” He raised one depleted set of digits in confirmation. “I’ve been ripped to pieces and bled dry, and I’m not ashamed to say I’d given up hope entirely. I was lost…”

Hot salt blurred his vision, and and he smiled as she reached up and dried his eye with the soft fur of her thumb. He cupped the back of her head with his other paw.

“Thank you for finding me.”

He thought he’d never kiss those velvet lips again, never inhale the sweet perfume of her breath or feel the thrust of her tongue against his own. But here she was, kissing him and whispering fiercely that she loved him. The nightmare of the past weeks shrank backward from her radiance, and, for a brief and fleeting moment, the world was perfect, and everything in it just so.

 

 

Judith was unaware of Felix’s equally improbable survival, and she froze when she saw the battered panther standing there on the landing, accompanied by Harley, thirty-odd Blue Jackets, and a string of bound wolves who had not wanted to die by Zoohevnite swords and had thrown down their own. 

“I hardly dare to ask how the devil you survived all this, too,” she finally said, grinning from ear to ear.

“Some measure of that miracle can be charged to his account,” Felix replied, nodding at Nick. “He’s rescued my life at least once that I know of.”

“Just the once,” Nick confirmed. “And it was no miracle; if I was a messiah, you and I would have pulled through in better shape.”

It was difficult to avoid noticing Felix’s lack of brachial symmetry, or, for that matter, the number of bleeding nicks and cuts he had earned from clumsily engaging the last of the pirates with his left. Felix, it seemed, had been reduced beyond just his sum total of flesh. But Nick did not stare at Felix’s deformities and held his gaze levelly; as much as he’d once enjoyed pricking the panther’s hide, they had won, if not each other’s admiration or friendship, then each other’s respect. Not to mention his recent revelations that Felix was actually the exiled heir to a proud nation, not to mention its vast fortunes and loyal armies, and Nick doubted the intelligence in making an enemy with that kind of power.

Then, before he could decide if this was the best forum or company to relay Felix’s secret, Harley stepped forward, laid a paw on Nick’s shoulder, and, with a broad smile of admiration, said, “If it’s not too bold, might I suggest we reunite with the mammals holding the pier? I expect they’re dying to know whether the fortress has fallen, and if they stand amongst the victors.”

 

 

Stunned gasps met the triumphant as they descended the lowest stairs, Nick and Felix walking in the lead, still woozy from their compounded ordeals, but proud and poised all the same. The crew who had been seeing to the comfort of the wounded or the dignity of the dead rushed forward with bandage and salve, singing praise of the attackers’ courage and marvelling at the durability of the fox and panther, both of whom all had thought amongst the dead.

“I’m fine,” Felix protested, waving away one medic who wanted to inspect the state of his amputation. “Honestly, I have been in good care up until today. You should see to the others.”

“Nonsense,” Judith said, though she found herself incapable of sternness. “Now that you’re back, I want it to be a damned certainty that you stay in good health.”

Nick was about to quip that he had absolutely no complaints towards being seen to, especially if that care involved a large jug of cider and an enormous feather mattress, but he suddenly spotted a small, dark shape slinking about the other Zoohavenite’s ankles, and his trial-worn levity evaporated in an instant.

“What,” he snarled, “is that felon doing here?”

The crowd parted to reveal Scaleton, looking tremendously distressed, the look of one who is inches from freedom and too smart not to fear that it might be snatched away at the last moment.

“He’s a prisoner here,” Harley explained, uncertain of Nick’s venomous tone. “Apparently he’s a citizen of Zooport, lost to this place for the past decade.”

“An deservedly so,” Nick spat, his paws tightening into fists. “That’s a decade that he’s served at Silas’ beck and call, licking his wounds and fussing over his firmity. Blazing hells, he’s the architect of the  _ Predator’s  _ phenomenal power, the one who stuck that damned flaming cannon in its deck!”

You’ve no right to lambaste me!” Scaleton squealed back, finding anger had risen like scum to the surface of his well of trepidation. “You were his prisoner for a few weeks, and look what it cost you! I was his captive for years, and obedience is the only reason I did not pay a similar penalty!”

“Then you have outstanding debts!” Nick roared and lunged at the trembling pangolin, his fury so abrupt that he neglected to draw his sword, intending instead to pummel Scaleton into the pierstones with his bare paws. He did not make it far, however, before Felix’s large paw came down on his shoulder, halting him as surely as a chainlink tether.

“Maybe he is a felon,” Felix cautioned, staring at Nick sternly, though not without sympathy. “But that is for the courts to decide, not you. Until fair justice pronounces him otherwise, he is innocent; he’s also, I’ll remind you, the real reason both of us are still alive.”

“He’s the reason the Blackwolf lives yet, as well,” Nick snarled, struggling against Felix’s grasp, until he felt something tug at his sleeve and looked down to see Judith shaking her head slowly. It broke her heart, Felix was right; justice was not supposed to yield to temper or mere sympathy. Words could not express how happy she was to find her fox alive again, and she would do anything in her power to ease the agony of their separation. Anything, except tarnishing the law. 

The storm of anger in him broke, and his shoulders slumped in acceptance.

“Now isn’t the time to let our emotions have mastery over our decisions,” she said. “Krak-Kavar belongs to us, but this was not the only battle being waged. It’s time to go and see if the  _ Invulnerable _ has shared in our success.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's funny how a plan can never measure the actual scope of the doing. The last 5 or 6 chapters was only handful of notes in my plan, and now the resolution is becoming a novella in its own right.
> 
> I'm going to stop hinting or even discussing anything to do with the future direction of the story. There's too much danger that I'll give something away, and it might set expectations that don't get fulfilled. So from now on, just writing technique and neat historical notes here. Here's one that piqued my interest. I probably know more about grammar than the average bloke, but I think everybody who speaks English is savvy on the concept of clauses: discrete units of meaning, some of which are also sentences, some of which only attach to them. An embedded clause is one that is located inside a larger clause, and it can usually be identified by the fact that it confers additional information on the base sentence. Take, for example:
> 
> "...as much as he’d once enjoyed pricking the panther’s hide, they had won, *if not each other’s admiration or friendship,* then each other’s respect."
> 
> The bit between commas is the embedded clause; it adds some additional information, and the sentence can get on just fine without it...except, in this case, it cant:
> 
> "...as much as he’d once enjoyed pricking the panther’s hide, they had won ----- then each other’s respect."
> 
> That doesn't work, does it? The 'then' is only necessary to make sense of the information in the embedded clause. Now, maybe I'm over-complicating this because the sentence would read fine without 'then' -- although me and my editor both agree it reads better with the word added in -- but I can't tell if I've stumbled upon some minor phenomenon I had no idea about before; an arrangement of a sentence that only works if you include grammatically extraneous additional information. If you can shed light on it, please do.
> 
> And, yeah, the two reunited! How about that?


	27. The Scars You Can't See

The _Seastorm_ quit the mouth of the tunnel and sailed into open waters, surrounded by the few twirling flakes that remained of the once potent snowstorm. Day was breaking in the east, a soft grey streak on the horizon, silhouetting the jagged teeth of the fortress ramparts. Under this pale dawn, the Zoohavenites saw the _Invulnerable_ and the _Predator_ floating by one another’s side, their sails furled and anchors lowered. There wasn’t a sound from either ship. The battle was over.

Judith put her spyglass to her eye, and an ecstatic grin split her face when she saw, strung between the _Predator’s_ mastheads, strings of blue and white bunting, and the Zoohavenite ensign fluttering from the aft flagpost.

“Gentlemammals!” Judith cried. “The _Predator_ flies the Zoohaven colours! Our boys have taken the ship!”

A colossal roar went up from every throat, and the sailors leaped into one another’s arms or hammered the gunnel with their paws, such was their ecstacy. One wag even let off some of the ship’s signal flares, filling the fading night with phosphorescent bursts of colour, and somehow managed to escape consequence for his mischief. It was hard not to excuse their jubilation; they were, after all, destined to go down in history as the brave souls who succeeded at a feat that many thought impossible -- breaking the Blackwolf’s reign of carnage, and tearing the dreaded _Predator’s_ wolf-skull pennants down from its masts.

Judith felt just as they did -- outwardly calm, but inwardly turning somersaults. However, her happiness was incomplete, and her internal gymnastics halted when she saw Nick standing at the forecastle, eschewing the festivities of his comrades. His presence still seemed completely unreal to her, and she worried he might suddenly be revealed as an imposter, resigning her back to a world where her lover was absent. That was idiocy, of course --  he was true, real flesh and blood. But that flesh, and the mind within, had been subjected to an ordeal she could scarcely comprehend, and she trembled to think what scars could not be seen beneath the ones that could.

She wished she could go and hold him.

He leaned against the bulwark and stared at the ship that had once plied the seas with a gallant fox captain at the helm. He watched, too, the stern of the _Invulnerable_ as the _Seastorm_ approached, staring unimpressed at the prominent words on its painted scrollwork. _Emerge Nobis Pacem Habuit_.

“ _We Emerge Unscathed_ , do we?” he muttered dryly, tapping his two fingers against the gunnel. “I’d like to see who this bloody _we_ is…”

“Well, I got through everything without being scathed,” came a shrill voice, and Nick glanced down to see a rough-looking rodent leaning against the timberhead and studying his nails. “Or...without scathes. Without scathage...what is a scathe, anyhow?”

“Who the fuck are you?” Nick demanded.

“Pay me no mind,” the rat sighed with a shrug. “I’m just the hero who blew open the gates of that shithole and let your sailor chums float right in. The name’s Artemis. I’d shake your paw, but...it looks like you haven’t got a whole one.”

“You’ve got about half a second to get out of my face,” Nick snarled, “before I flick you into the ocean.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call that a clever course of action,” Artemis warned, “given I’ve been vouchsafed passage to Zooport by your commodore, and you wouldn’t want to make a liar out of her. But I tell you what; you let me speak my piece, and I’ll leave you to yours.”

Nick simply stared off into the distance and gave no indication that he’d squash the rat with his elbow if he didn’t make himself scarce.

“I heard you shouting at that scaly sand-rat down on the pier,” Artemis said. “The sailors have been talking about him, too -- the snivelling lack-spine who did a fiend’s bidding for ten years out of fear of his own pitiful life. And then here’s you, risking your neck to end his wickedness, and getting bits of yourself hacked off for your trouble. I bet you’re thinking, how dare that son of a gutter-whore have the gall to speak ill of me? Well I’ll tell you, a coward’s conscience is like an iron weight around his neck. Trust me -- I’ve carried one around most’v my life. Sometimes you have to snap the chain and throw the weight off, or it will drag you down into the guilty blackness below. It’s shame, not reason, that’s making him squeal like a mouse with their tail caught in a mangle.”

“So he feels bad about being Silas’ minion,” Nick grumbled. “What, am I supposed to feel sorry for him?”

“Alls I’m saying is, as one rogue to another, there’s little reward in being mad at the ones who’ve done us wrong, and there’s none in slitting their throats, unless you can get away with it. But I’ll bet a hundred maura to a hairball that he’s feeling as guilty as sin. And there’ll come a time when that weight gets too great and the chain too strong to be moved or cast off. Mammal like that will do near anything to be rid of his anchor. He’ll do you any favour…”

Then, before Nick could make good on his threat to brush him overboard, Artemis scampered down the bowsprit hatch, leaving Nick to sigh and wonder why some mammals felt the need to dole out cryptic advice to strangers.

The _Seastorm_ came alongside the _Invulnerable_ and laid down gangplanks for the sailors to come aboard while the flagship’s crew cried greeting and felicitations, although the celebratory air was marred by a haunting juxtaposition; the deck was still wet with blood, and a provoking number of blue-uniformed bodies lay spaced out under white shrouds. As impressive as their victory was, it could not be considered apart from its cost.

Judith found Beck seated on a crate before the quarterdeck, watching the carpenters salvage what they could of the demolished mainsail while Dreyfus bandaged the racoon’s brow. He grinned wryly at the rabbit, bobbing his head and earning some chiding grumbles from the surgeon ram.

“And so returns the valiant conqueror,” he exclaimed. “I suppose you flushed those wolves right out of their reeking den?”

“To the last,” Judith said. “And I see you’ve done just as well here against far less favourable odds.” She leaned in to inspect his crown and asked, “You’re hurt?”

“Dreyfus says I have a fractured skull,” Beck explained, “but I think he’s being a simpering wet-nurse.”

“Hold your head still!” Dreyfus scolded.

“You’ve taken the enemy ship,” Judith pressed, her smile becoming a stiff line, “but was the Blackwolf slain in the fighting? Or did you manage to take him alive?”

“He was no pushover, and he must’ve killed ten mammals himself before he was subdued. But we did not kill him. That honour will go to the king’s executioner.”

She closed her eyes and smiled. This was, at least as far as Silas’ defeat was concerned, the last link in a now-perfect chain. It had not, however, been coupled bloodlessly.

“More than ten have fallen to his vile horde,” she said. “Many more. Have you a tally of the losses?”

“103 mammals,” Beck replied. “Unfortunately, your orders officer, Riley, was amongst them.”

“MacHorn was amongst the casualties, too. Their sacrifice will not go unremembered. And besides, the news is not all so morbid; there’s a couple thought amongst the dead who’ve turned out to be nothing such.”

That’s when Beck saw, over Judith’s head, the shapes of Felix and Nick making their uncoordinated embarkation. The crew saw the state of them and began to mutter, and Felix’s constitution could take no more; he vanished into the hold to find peace and quiet. Nick, on the other hand, marched straight towards them, his remaining eye narrow and determined.

“Well, I’ll be a gerbil’s uncle,” Beck muttered as the fox approached. “I’ve never seen a mammal who could cheat Death so capably and so often.”

“Where’s the Blackwolf?” Nick said, his temper controlled but beginning to spark. Beck caught the guarded intensity in Nick’s tone, and his face become serious.

“Locked in the brig, and under constant watch. His right to company is forfeit.”

“I need to speak to him,” Nick demanded.

Naturally, Beck was unimpressed with such presumption, and he readied to put the upstart in his place.

He didn’t get a chance. Judith beat him to it.

“Lieutenant Wilde,” she chided crisply, and he turned to face her in some bewilderment. “I’m willing to allow that you have earned some concession on account of your recent suffering. But if you presume license to question and make demands of a captain, then the only thing you’ll earn is twenty lashes over the barrel. Salute Captain Harrington, and go take your rest.”

“Silas needs to answer for what he’s done,” Nick snarled, pointing to the flap of leather that shielded his useless eye from other’s scrutiny. It was a desperate-sounding protest, more anguish than anger, but it was also insubordination, and it needed putting right.

Though it broke her heart to do it. Though a keen ear could hear it shatter from inside her chest.

“Your condition does not give you the right to question orders,” she said sharply. “Your opinion on taking him prisoner is no secret; it’s more than likely you want an opportunity to slash his throat. Go and take your rest. Do not confuse that for a request.”

The spark was threatening to kindle into an inferno, and his rouge’s history, that dark passenger of the past, began to shriek in his ear that revenge was his right, and he had to seize it. That every moment where Silas kept a beating heart was a dangerous opportunity for him to slip his chains. That he owed it to his father.

But the wind, which would in any other circumstance have turned sparks into wildfire, merely blew the embers out.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said flatly.

He saluted stiffly and turned prow-ward to take himself below the deck. Before he left, he caught one fleeting glimpse of Judith, struggling to maintain her look of authoritative intensity. He smiled at her -- wan, sorrowful, and brief -- before he disappeared into the hold to obey his orders.

 

 

“Are you ready?!”

“Aye, Ma’am!”

“Pull!”

MacHorn would have made easy work of it, but, with a morning’s persistent labour and an arsenal of axes, pry bars, and pulleys, the crew managed to tear the Cerberus out of the _Predator’s_ deck and shunt it to the ship’s side. Then, with chocks and hardwood levers, they hoisted it over the gunnel, where it struck through water with a mighty splash and sank into the ocean’s ever-hungry stomach. There was a great roil of bubbles -- the beast’s last terrified breath -- before it slipped below the reach of the sun and vanished for good.

The crew lined the forecastle’s bulwarks and cheered the weapon’s consignment to the sea floor where it could never again do harm, unless some fish swam in one of its bores and became stuck. Judith, of course, exercised greater restraint, but felt her heart swell with just and victorious pride. She had half a mind to spend the extra time and mammalpower it would take to strike each of the four remaining cannons from Krak-Kavar’s walls, to ensure they never again fell into nefarious clutches.

It wasn’t clear yet, however, if time was on their side; the weather was calm and the wind was favourable, but it was hard to tell if those condition would last. She’d be damned if she’d risk sinking in rough conditions -- not with forty-nine felons awaiting trial and a staggering quantity of reclaimed treasure in her hold.

They were just waiting on the _Seastorm’s_ crew to shovel the last of the stolen gold aboard, storing it in crates and sacks, or simply piling it into whatever recesses of the hold were not preoccupied with other stores. At current estimation, they had reclaimed two-hundred and eighty-eight tonnes -- over a million mauras’ worth -- of ill-won wealth, which necessitated some creative storage. Even the _Invulnerable’s_ considerable capacity had been unable to accommodate everything, and at that moment a small force of deck paws were labouring to seal the excess coins in locked chests and drag them up to the weatherdeck to be secured, muttering all the while about the sheer tonnage of treasure.

“I know this isn’t an original observation,” said a voice from beside her, “but there’s a bloody lot of money here.”

She turned to see Nick approaching slowly, steadily reclaiming his balance, though he’d procured a single crutch to cope with the constant rocking of the ship’s deck; without it, he ran the risk of stumbling over and being subjected to half-dozen concerned or sniggering faces.

“No, it’s not an original observation,” she replied with a wry smile. “But it’s definitely the truth.”

“Honestly, if you melted down every coin and candelabra here, there’d be enough to gild Brightborne Castle, the Royal Gardens, and his Supremacy’s ass, to boot.”

“A pirate’s dream, this much money…” She reached out and jostled the pocket of his coat, adding, “You haven’t been tempted to find a new home for any of this lucre, have you?”

“You injure my honour as a certified criminal,” Nick retorted. “But for once, I think your unwieldy and inconvenient sense of duty is in the right; the proper way to see that the blood is cleaned off Silas’ hoard is to have it returned to lawful paws. Besides -- what would I do with a gilded ass?”

“What about the amulet?” she asked, gesturing towards the golden talisman hanging from his neck. “I’ve not known that trinket amongst your possessions. Was it not part of the Silas’ plunder?”

Nick fingered the three-pointed star, turning it over in his paw. While it was simple and stoneless, without the baroque complexity common to jewelry of the noble class, it did shine fiercely in the morning sun, as bright as a lighthouse beacon, as if something more precious than ordinary gold had been stirred in at the moment of its casting. “Maybe I’ll tell you one day,” he said, “but it may just be the most important thing I own.”

Judith cocked her head, perplexed. Maybe it was a fox thing; the Star of Gahora had widely known connections to vulpine culture. “Is it lucky?” she asked.

Nick looked thoughtful for a second. If one wanted a perfect example of complete and pure lucklessness, one could hardly pass over the last month of his life for a better candidate. Then again, for all his cynicism that karma played any role in the struggle between right and wrong, the amulet had, in his darkest hour, deflected his utter ruin and aided his escape.

“I think it might be,” he admitted. “Though not as lucky as the hole in my coat. Which, by the way, is evidence enough to put me beyond suspicion of theft; if I’d swiped a pocketful of Silas’ ill-gotten loot, you’d see it as a trail of coins on the floor behind me.”

Judith smiled, and it occurred to her how much she had missed this -- the simple pleasure of speaking with Nick, of trading wit and barb, revelling in his delightful blend of eloquence and foul manners. It was one of the many things about him that made her heart titter and sent shivers down her spine. But it was impossible to ignore that, while Nick put on a sly smile and presumed to have emerged triumphant from his trials, something about him was changed. In the black tunnels beneath Krak-Kavar, some pieces of his heart and soul had been left behind. This filled Judith with gnawing concern, leading her to re-examine their relationship, beset by challenges as it already was, in a new and stinging light.

The fact that they were of different castes was a great challenge. The fact that they were different species was a greater challenge still. That she was his superior? A challenge one hundred feet high and plated with iron.

But even if she resolved to surmount these impossible challenges, there was another that she simply had not considered, one that could not be pushed aside or passed by.

What if Nick decided she was not worth it? Discarded her as a leech that took more than she gave?

While this insidious thought was peeling her apart inside, a badger approached and saluted the pair of them. “Lieutenant Wilde. Commodore, signal from the _Seastorm_ ; they’re done taking on cargo. All ships are ready to set sail at your command.”

“Thank you, Thomas. Get orders to Captains Harrington and Growlmont--”

She paused mid-word, staring at the strange, distant smile on Nick’s face that was, sadly, fast becoming part of his character. He caught her gaze.

“What?” he asked.

“What?”

“I mean...what, Ma’am?”

“No, what are you thinking?”

“Nothing. Just that...well, we did it. We really did it. It was supposed to be impossible, from the very first step, and then made more impossible still for wanting to capture Silas in one piece. Yet we did it. I don’t think there’s a single soul who’ll believe it without proof.”

“And proof they’ll have. When we march him off the ship in chains. When the judge’s gavel puts a full-stop under his sentence. And when the whole of Zooport sees him choking for breath with a rope around his throat.”

“Saints, that’s going to be a fine day. It’s almost enough to chase away one’s cares that Krak-Kavar gets to stand as a testament to that bastard’s fifteen blood-soaked years. But I suppose there are some things beyond mortal power to change, even for a bunch as lucky as we…”

He trailed off when he noticed the twinkle in Judith’s eyes, a spark that said, _we’ve already managed one impossible feat. What’s one more?_

Good weather be damned. She was going to see this thing done properly, in every particular. For him.

She turned to Thomas, who was holding his salute and looking slightly confused.

“Rescind that, acting orders officer,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere. Not yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, Judith. That is some lead-heavy shit you're carrying around in the pit of your heart.
> 
> I'm making a greater effort to include more adapted historical accuracy where I can, because, as it turns out, studying naval history can be really interesting and pretty funny; maybe not the specifics of battles and tactics, but certainly matters of sea-faring culture and the minutia of naval deportment. I mentioned a Zoohaven ensign, for example, for the first time. As far as I can tell (of course, Wikipedia is largely my guide), a ship sailed with its national flag hoisted so you could tell where it hailed from. This also involved the flying of ensigns, which further indicated if the ship was a military or merchant vessel. (These apparently aren't to be confused with Jacks, which are flown from the bow of the ship when the ship is at rest, or on special occasions, or every third Sunday when the captain wants eggs for breakfast as far as I can tell). Wrapped up in this confusing morass is the protocol for what flag to fly when actually fighting. You were supposed, I believe, to run up your nations flag before firing a shot (say, if you had been flying an enemy flag as a ruse, or no flag at all). And you surrendered by taking down said flag, or your 'colours'. (This is where I discovered two new and interesting things: the origin of the idiom 'to pass with flying colours', and that fact that waving a white flag does NOT indicate surrender -- instead, a request for a truce so you could communicate with the enemy. A surrender was 'striking the colours'...unless your captain had 'nailed the colours' to the mast, in which case you were shit out of luck for surrendering, and were probably about to eat cannonballs until your ship sunk.)
> 
> I think this is probably the best way to handle period accuracy -- alluding to it, without making it necessary to understanding the plot. That way, readers who are in the know will get a kick out of it (or correct you on incorrect usage, natch), and readers who've never heard of an ensign before will assume its relevance and still get a sense of depth. It's like splitting the difference between making everything up and alienating people through an obsession with detail.


	28. The Secret

Thirty barrels.

By the time they had syphoned off what was needed to replenish the  _ Invulnerable’s _ magazines and dumped the excess into the ocean, there were thirty barrels -- about ten-thousand pounds -- of blackpowder, which the gunner’s first mate calculated would be more than enough to reduce the fortress tower to shattered rubble, and very likely launch a few stones high enough to startle the gulls that wheeled overhead. It cost them an extra day, and the afternoon was well advanced before the cautious labour was complete.

The demolitionists carefully clustered the barrels on the lower landings of the stairwell, where the blast would echo and bounce off the close walls like angry bees in a jar, shredding the tower to its last stone. Then, once the final barrel was set in place, the brave sappers poured a trail of powder to the end of the pier and lit a candlestub whose wick would burn down within the half-hour. Then they quickly -- exceedingly quickly -- rushed aboard the cutters, caught the favourable coastal wind, and were a safe distance out into the bay when, in synchronization with hundreds of drawn breaths aboard the three ships, the candleflame licked the powder and set the fuse sizzling.

Everyone heard the first wave of concussions, deep and bass and impressively loud, like the cataclysmic roar of a monstrous volcano erupting miles away. That first blast was quickly joined by a second, then a third, and the walls of the redoubt tower swelled and bulged from the destructive force boiling inside. A lava-like glow lurked behind the cracks, and, just to complete the imagery of a hell-spitting caldera, an enormous column of powdersmoke broke through the ceiling and saturated the sky with a choking grey cloud.

The Zoohavenites were already applauding and screaming approval at this stage, and their celebrations struck a fever pitch when the crippled tower began to buckle in upon itself. It leaned as it collapsed, coming down on the eastern wall which yielded absolute under its levelling might, sending the Cerberus’s four brothers tumbling down the mountainside and into the sea, accompanied by a landslide of fractured masonry and blasted granite. Whatever else remained of the fortress was sucked down into the breached chasm of its underground dock, and soon, all that remained of the Blackwolf’s unassailable, undetectable lair were a few damaged walls, some scattered and blackened bricks, and an enormous billow of dust that was already starting to settle. Everything else -- every least pinch of it -- had vanished.

Surrounded by her crew’s triumphant wails, Judith felt a wave of satisfaction roll over her. It was the epilogue, the final word in this chapter of history. They could not here and now put Silas to the sword, but reducing his fort, the nest from which he had executed his campaign of bloodlust and banditry with impunity, was nearly as rewarding -- the burning of the brute in effigy. 

“See, Nick?” she said. “Mortal power is no limitation when we put our minds to a task.” She got no answer from him, and she glanced over to see him turn his face aside to hide tears that were wetting his cheek fur. She could only imagine he was weeping for joy at the sundering of the stage upon which his disfigurement had been enacted, and it made her feel a little better -- shrank that perturbing thought Nick might abandon her as a parasite -- to help close the curtains on that tragedy. 

But it wasn’t over. Not yet. Not for her.

There was one last page that needed ink on it before she could shut the cover and call this book complete. And authoring that final chapter demanded that she do something she was not looking forward to.

 

 

The prisoners had only been in captivity for a few days, yet already the brig stank to high heaven, a cloying combination of lupine musk, sodden fur and rank piss that permeated the already stagnant air of the  _ Invulnerable’s  _ lowest deck. Judith tried not to breath as she passed them, chained paw-to-foot, their mouths sheathed in leather muzzles or tied shut with braided cords. Nor did she deign to look at them; she would only have seen a row of menacing, predatory stares glowering at her from behind their iron bars, each more hateful than the last. She felt not the slightest twinge of contrition for these felons, even allowing that every surrender had spared one of her crew the danger of death. Forget the harsh measures their leader took against desertion; they had chosen to throw their lot in with him from the very beginning, and they would share in his fate also.

She gave them no thought. It was not them she had come to see.

At the end of the room was a partition wall, closed over and locked from the other side. She rapped on the wooden boards and heard a gruff voice reply, “Away with you. It’s six hours till the changing of the guard, and no one but us sees the prisoner.”

“It’s your commodore,” she answered, and there was an abrupt pause before a key scraped in the lock and the partition slid to one side, revealing the burly and well-armed lion, Ashton.

“Apologies, Ma’am,” he said with a sharp salute. “I didn’t know it was you.”

“No apology necessary,” she said, gesturing for him to stand at ease. “You’re doing your duty, and properly at that. How is the prisoner?”

Gruber, the second marine on guard, jerked a hoof at the cramped cage set into the wall of the room, so small that a mammal of even medium build could scarcely lay down on its floor. In there, seated on a wooden stool, his arms lashed behind his back, his ankles locked together with tight chains, and a studded leather muzzle keeping his jaw clamped shut, was the Blackwolf.

“He’s not going anywhere,” the buffalo said.

Silas’ yellow eyes stared at Judith from his claustrophobic confines, oblivious to anything besides her. Those eyes were alive with hate, and something far worse; it was plain what he intended to do if the bars, buckles and blade-wielding marines were not standing in his way. Judith took a breath, reached into her ample keep of courage, and turned to the nearest marine.

“I’d have words with him. Remove his muzzle, and then wait outside. I’ll summon you when I’m done.”

The pair of marines exchanged brief, concerned glances before the lion, who had the keys already, unlocked the barred door to the small cell. Then, with infinite distaste, as if it caused him physical pain to lay a paw on the black devil that lacked the retributive force of a closed fist, he unbuckled the belt that enclosed the two halves of the muzzle and pulled the whole piece away. A strand of saliva bowed between Silas’ lip and the muzzle’s metal bit, and flakes of dried blood tumbled off the end of his wounded snout. Without the muzzle, Judith could see the extent to which his nose was swollen, as well as the dark bruising under his eyes. But those eyes were not dimmed for being set in their broken sockets; instead, they positively blazed with intensity as the lion relocked the cell door, and the pair of marines saluted their commander, withdrew from the room, and shut the door behind them.

He drew a deep breath through his nose, finding and feasting on her scent, that unmistakable stench of prey that made his already wet mouth begin to drool.

“Commodore Hopps,” he said at last with a horrible sneer.

“I’m sure you heard it, even down here,” said Judith cooly. “That monumental blast. That was the sound of ten-thousand pounds of blackpowder turning Krak-Kavar into spall and smoke. Nothing of it remains but a gravel-strewn crater. The  _ Predator  _ flies Zoohaven colours. Its innovations are property of the Royal Navy. Your lackies are either dead or captured. And, in good time, you will be found guilty of piracy and murder, and you will hang from the neck until dead. This, Silas Rourke, is what they call defeat.”

“You of all mammals, Hopps, ought to have learned something in all this,” Silas scoffed. “Nothing is certain until it lies in the past.”

His manner was so outrageously delusional that Judith almost laughed. “Are you plotting an escape?” she asked. “Alone, in the middle of the ocean, chained in the brig of a hostile warship. And, discounting your out-numbered clutch of defeated and disarmed followers, in no company beyond uniformed sailors who want nothing more than an excuse to open you up and examine just how heartless you really are. If nothing is truly certain, then your demise is so close that I’d struggle to define its degree of separation.”

But the wolf would not be drawn on the source of his insane optimism. “Why are you here then, brave bunny? Surely not to gloat; I didn’t think you’d be the type.”

“I wanted to see you face-to-face. This collection of dreadful titles: the Blackwolf; Terror of the Latara; Death that Sails. I wanted to judge for myself if you measured up to the legends. Imagine my disappointment.”

Silas grinned, cracking the bloodcrust at the corners of his mouth.

“You mean, you wanted to see the brute who mutilated your lover, correct?”

Those words were a chilled razor, slicing though her back and scraping the length of her spine.  _ How? How by the Saints’ grace did he know that?  _ There was no hiding the way she stiffened, nor the rapid burst of twitching that commandeered her nose. 

“There’s no reason to fret, poor thing,” he soothed. “Your repulsive secret is safe with me; as you said, I am alone here, with no one to tell it to -- no one who’d believe me, at any rate. Gods, it must just make you  _ ache  _ to see what I’ve done to him. Where were you, Hopps, when he lay on the cold ground, his blood running in the grout? Were you in bed? Taking breakfast? Wherever you were, that’s when I took his head gently in my paw and ran the point of my sword though that beautiful green eye.”

His grin grew wider still; above even her malodorous rabbit reek, he could smell her anger. Sour and hot, like rotting flesh in a hot kiln. 

“How long can you keep your secret, then? Only a degenerate would go outside their own species, but with a  _ fox _ ? Don’t pretend the world won’t care if you let it slip; hero or no, they will cast you down in disgrace the moment they know. By Luna, I’m a heartless monster, as you say, and I can barely stand the sight of you, thinking of how some flea-bitten beast has caressed that face and stuck his rancid fox’s cock in your slimy cunt. What will the civilised world say when they learn the truth? Will they say anything at all? Will they simply bare their fangs?”

“Beck was right about you,” Judith hissed, her voice trembling with rage. “Your bark exceeds your bite by leaps and bounds. I’m in such a hopeless position, yet you’re the one staring at me from a murderer’s cell? You’re just as weak as the prey you claim to despise.”

“If I’m so weak,” he asked, “and you’re such an example of strength, why did you send a subordinate to crush me into submission while you raided my empty den? Why didn’t you come to battle me yourself?”

“My mandate, written with the seal of the Admiralty, was to take you alive,” she replied softly. “And having seen what you’ve done to my crew, if it were me who were staring down at you, with a blade in my paw…” 

Her eyes blazed with ferocity to match the Blackwolf’s own, and there was no doubting the truth of what followed.

“...I would have killed you. I would have cut your damned throat from ear-to-ear. I couldn’t trust myself not to. Somehow, I’m going to have to settle for the delight of watching you kick and squirm and shit yourself when the executioner drops you through the gallows trapdoor.”

With that, she spun on her heel and hammered on the wall, ordering the marines to remuzzle the repugnant wolf, with no need to be gentle as they did it. She was halfway out the door when Silas cried, “Hopps!” Despite the black depth of her hatred for the foul creature, she found herself turning to face him again. He was grinning like a lunatic still, watching her around the bulky frames of the marines moving in to subdue him.

“We will meet again.”

She waited just long enough to watch the pair of guards roughly ram the muzzle back over his nose, cinching its straps tightly around his swollen snout, before she replied, “No. We won't.”

Then she slammed the door shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's one line I found myself obsessing over in this chapter:
> 
> "...stuck his rancid fox’s cock in your slimy cunt."
> 
> And there's a couple of reasons for that. I worry a little about the C-word; I'm from a small Australian town, so it really has no power to offend as far as I'm concerned. But I am aware that some people really cant stand it, and I wouldn't be surprised if I've lost a reader or two over the last time I let it slip in. I wouldn't begrudge you for it. But I feel compelled to explain why I think it's an important addition.
> 
> Partly, it's feels historically correct; there's not that many viable terms for the female pudendum that don't have the gloss of modernity. Game of Thrones might go a little overboard with it, but I still think it helps us locate the show in time and space. Also, it has the right measure of vulgarity to express a rough and mannerless brute or, in this case, a real villain. Of course Silas would have no reservations about it; his idea of 'polite company' is to not murder you and your children. I'll probably never make it part of Nick's lexicon, because he's dashing and refined for all his outward shabbiness, and he knows how to treat a lady.
> 
> But to come back to this particular example...well, there's something deeply disempowering about the way he refers to Judith's and Nick's romance that really resonated with me. I mean, how DARE he denigrate their honest love in such a callous manner, cold-blooded killer that he is? And worse still, how dare he be right about the likely reception if their bond became common knowledge? So I figured, if the word choice could make an author feel genuine sympathy and outrage on behalf of his own characters, then maybe the audience will feel the same.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated.


	29. Happiness

Nick didn’t think he’d ever miss anything as much as he missed fresh tobacco.

He had a few weeks’ rations saved up, and he seized them greedily from the purser at the first opportunity and escaped to a neglected corner of the ship where, if his new-found luck held, he might be allowed the courtesy of an undisturbed smoke. He produced the meerschaum pipe he’d pocketed from Krak-Kavar, wondering briefly what had compelled him to take the peculiar object with him. It was a fine enough example of artisanship, far superior to his filthy wooden pipe, but its canine aspect ought surely to trouble him; after the bloody gauntlet of the last month, it would be too soon if he ever looked upon a lupine face again. Perhaps he thought he could, with a sharp tool and some patience, whittle its features into agreement and make it resemble a fox. Or perhaps he desired a likeness of his hated foe, that he could rekindle an incandescent rage at any moment.

Or perhaps he’d swiped it because he was, at heart, a bit of a crook.

He readied a pinch of tobacco, taking a moment to savour its rich, oily perfume, then packed the pipe’s well, struck a match over it, and relished the blissful billow of smoke that rushed into his lungs. He felt his knotted muscles begin to melt and the chittering demons of his consciousness fall silent. He felt himself relax.

Relaxation had become a limited resource aboard the  _ Invulnerable _ , especially following the destruction of the fortress. Nick had found avoiding company difficult, and mammals were continuously slapping him on the back and asking how good he felt to have thrashed the enemy, expecting that he might, if pressed, recount the tale of his legendary duel with the Blackwolf. He’d rather the sight of a murderous wolf charging him with a raised blade than of another midshipmammal advancing with a spare tankard of grog and an expectant gleam in their eye.

He had even found himself slinking away from Judith; unbelievable, perhaps, given the challenges they had surmounted to be reunited, but, try as he might to the contrary, her presensence made him feel restless and uneasy. Their relationship had only grown more knotted and complex, and it was unbearable that the one mammal he wanted to call upon for comfort not only had to hide her feelings in public, but was eternally at the mercy of a higher authority that trumped him every time. Love her or not, that was tough gristle to chew.

Judith and he had survived the Hunt, and struck down the alpha leading the pack as well. But it seemed their greatest tests were yet to come. Tests where swordplay and strategy could render no effect.

“So, what next?” he muttered to himself. “Well, you know ‘what next’. You can’t leave. The Royal Navy has your testicles in a tourniquet.”

Thoughts of days gone by, of an empty horizon and infinite freedom, came back to him in savourable rush, and he smirked as he pictured himself thrashing his old first mate at dice, and the time he crashed his ship into a rotting whale carcass and suffered the stink for a full week, and the time he’d been ambushed by the militia at one Madame  Bienfait ’s bordello and had to flee to his docked ship in his unbuttoned undergarments. They’d been hard times, sure enough, but not without their rewards; as a captain, if he’d come across an enemy as goulish as Silas Rourke, no force would have spared the wretch being lowered down the bow of his ship and thrashed by the waves against the hull until the swell carried the scraps of his carcass away. And he never would have had to disguise his desire for his mistress. And he wouldn’t have been pressed into battle against the enemies of a nation that despised him, or have had to cross blades against such a murderous psychopath, or have found himself washed up on some gull-fouled rock in the middle of the sea, mad with thirst and waiting to die…

_ That’s right,  _ he thought suddenly, sitting up straight.  _ Fox’s Grave. The smallest, shittest island any mammal ever set foot on. _

He was suddenly possessed by a surge of willfulness, and he stood up and shook the ash out of his pipe. 

_ Damn it, I don’t care what an insignificant speck it is. I discovered it, and I’m putting my name to it. As I will to every unnamed shore I land on from this day. By the time I’m dead, you won’t be able to glance at a map without seeing a dozen islands called Fox’s Something. _

There would be, he figued, a pen and ink and the relevant maps in Judith’s quarters, given that she had heeded his advice about maintaining a cartographic surplus. Blast it if he wouldn’t go and claim his discovery right now. Thrusting his tricorne on his head and straightening the collar of his coat, he marched out the door, where he immediately crashed into Harley coming the other way.

“Oh, evening,” said Nick tartly; he hadn’t wanted to speak with anyone if he could avoid it. But he softened when he saw the state of the leopard: his eyes encircled by swollen, dark pouches; his brow miserably creased; his shoulders sagging bonelessly; his fur uncombed and without luster, like something dead and boiled.

“How goes?” Harley asked without enthusiasm, so distracted that he seemed to be looking at a point just over Nick’s shoulder.

“I’ve certainly felt worse,” Nick muttered. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine,” Harley lied. “It’s all...everything’s fine. It ought to be, right? We’ve won. Yet, there’s so many dead. Lars is still in the infirmary...the surgeon has plugged and patched his wound, but he doesn’t wake, and his breath is so shallow, weak, like a sickly kit, like a runt who won’t survive the winter…” His troubled mind snapped back to the present, and he muttered, “Sorry. I do go on. I’m hale and hearty, and I ought to be content with that.”

“You know,” Nick said, “if these are the jackal’s last moments, and the Ferrymammal is coming to sweep his soul away, there’ll be a damned shock in store for him when Lars tells that hooded bastard to fuck off, and to ram that scythe up his bony arse.”

Harley managed a thin smile, the ghost of a laugh creeping near his lips, before he fixed his drained eyes upon Nick. “I believed in it, you know. ‘Take the Blackwolf alive, let him face fair justice’ and all that. But you were right; not just correct, but in the right. We took the honourable course, and now we can measure what honour weighs in dead Blue Jackets. And if I’d backed you up, and not joined in sneering at you for a mutinous fox, I might have been able to sway the commodore’s mind…”

Nick sighed, and laid his paw on Harley’s slumped shoulder. “It would have done no good,” he said. “You’re a lieutenant of the Royal Navy, right? It’s not your burden to steer the course. You do your duty, and you find some way to square the result.”

He gave the leopard a comforting squeeze before departing, and was at the far end of the corridor before before he turned and called, “Lars will pull through, don’t you panic.” Then he was gone.

 

 

There were fewer eyes on the orlop deck, and Nick managed to slink unhindered to the aft of the ship and up towards the captain’s quarters. The closer he gained on the weatherdeck, the louder the sound of revelry grew, the cacophony of every mammal not saddled with watch or some other late-hours duty dancing and drinking, and each with an increasing lack of coordination, no doubt. He gave the stairs to the top of the ship a wide berth, and eventually found himself before Judith’s chamber door.

He was about to knock when his knuckles froze inches from the wood, repelled by some undetectable force. Was he merely to enter, satisfy this foolish desire, and then leave? Would they talk? What of? And what was he to call her? Commodore? Carrots? My dear?  _ Why did she suddenly feel so alien to him? _

He finally wrestled his doubts aside and knocked, calling out as loud as he dared, “Judith? Are you there?”

There was no answer, but his rapping pushed the door open by a few inches. Poking his nose through the crack, he peered into the room beyond. The only light, besides the moon’s shimmer, was a small candle burning on the dresser, keeping the shadows to the room’s corners and crevasses. It was appointed fittingly for a military officer, with a crystal chandelier dangling from above, an ornate brass bedhead, and other furniture of expense and distinction; he imagined the opulence had been foisted on her, without time to organise the austere plainness she preferred. The room smelled of her, and he closed his eye and drank her spice with his nose. Earthy and rich, like fresh coffee. He sighed, recalling that smell, recalling the night he wore it in his fur like perfume.

The reason he was here blinked beacon-like through the fog of remembrance, and he scanned the room for the map drawer. It was a cumbersome thing, taller than the rabbit who had requested it by a factor of three. It appeared she’d taken to heart his advice about never having too many maps; you could lay them all border to border and recreate most of the known world in paper and ink. There were a few examples already spread out on the table, and he took the candlepan from the dresser and waved the light over them, absorbing their details. He recognised them as repeats at once, the only difference between them being age. One was obsolete by over fifty years, and on it he saw the circled fortress whose presence was omitted from that map’s modern counterpart.

_ So, that’s how you did it,  _ he thought.  _ Bright bunny. I guess there’s a reason they gave you command of a ship.  _ Usefully, both maps encompassed the stretch of sea where they had first engaged the  _ Predator,  _ and he traced his finger over the blue daubs of open water, making hopeless guesses at where the sortie had unfolded and what direction he had drifted from it. Soon he was smirking at the daftness of his behaviour. What explorer had even laid eyes on his pathetic scrap of land, let alone thought it worthy of recording? He decided he’d have to draw it himself, and he picked up a pen and wetted its nib in the inkbottle. Then a noise from behind made him turn, pen raised guiltily, caught in his moment of minor vandalism.

Standing in the doorway was Judith, her ears attuned to the sounds within, ears which drooped behind her when she recognised Nick in the dim candlelight.

“Is that you, Nick?” she asked, stepping over the threshold. “What are you doing in my cabin?”

Answering came as a struggle, his words sprouting burrs that caught in his throat, a consequence of having both so much and nothing to say.

“Nothing,” he murmured. “I was looking for a nautical map.”

“A map? What the devil for?”

“When...after that first battle with Silas, Felix and I washed up on a small island. Tiny place, nothing but a perch for a few rank seafowl. I thought we were both doomed, so I resolved, somehow, to make it known that it was my discovery. But, now that I think of it, it’s an asinine conceit…”

An awkward silence descended, save for the crew’s distant-sounding laughter and music; they had commenced a well-known ditty that called for stamping in unison to augment the beat, though too few seemed to have the wherewithal to keep the meter, and it was devolving into a furious and disordered hammering of soles on the deckboards.

“I’d...I ought to go,” Nick said eventually.

But Judith stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind her. The clamour of the celebrations became a hushed murmur outside, and Nick’s heart went from resting to raging in the space of the lock clicking shut. He started at her uncertainly, at a pair of eyes that were unquestionably bold, and knew exactly what they wanted.

“This is a mistake,” he said.

“The mistake,” she replied, stepping towards him slowly, “is taking for granted that both of us will be alive on any given morrow. It’s failing to seize every opportunity to be in one another’s arms. And it’s not a mistake I’m going to make twice.”

“Judith, if someone sees—”

“I don’t care, Nick. I don’t care if the whole world gawks and spits and hurls stones. I love you—” By now, she was standing in front of him, and she took his shaking paws in her own. “—more than words can ever express, more than I care for Zoohaven’s approval. You once said we’d burn this candle secretly, but what if it’s snuffed out, never to be rekindled? I’m not going to hide the light and wait for the wick to fizzle; I’m going stand in its blaze and dare the darkness to creep near. And I won’t let anyone take it from me ever again.”

She pulled him downwards, drawing his lips close to hers. Her breath on his fur. Intense breath. Rapid and hot.

“You’re risking everything,” he breathed.

“You’re worth risking everything for.”

 

 

The silvery light of the moon lay under the windows like pools of liquid pearl, and a naked Nick slipped off the bed and went to stand in the ghostly glimmer, peering out at the night sky beyond the panes. A brilliant waning crescent winked back at him; the gates to paradise, it seemed, were opening once again. And boy, would Nick believe that.

Lying with Judith was an experience unlike any other, one which made him doubt the authority of his senses, made him think he was drunk or in the throes of a blissful dream. It was more than just her silk fur, her agile frame, her taut muscle working with his own. It was the way she cupped his cheeks in her paws, brought her face down to his, and whispered her feelings directly into his ear—a sommelier decanting a priceless vintage, daring not to spill a single drop. Believing the reality of it took an extreme effort of willpower.

He studied the dishevelled state of his bare fur in the moonlight, unkempt and matted and still wet from each other’s passion. He knew he stank of her—head to toe, some places stronger than others—and he searched about for something to cover her scent. Risky as this coupling had been, it was nothing compared to the danger of spending the night in her room through till morn; he might as well march the entire crew in here to gawp at their debauchery. And if he was going to walk amongst their prying eyes and flaring nostrils, he wanted to give the inarguable impression that the only thing he’d been under was a draining liquor flask.

There was a bottle of brandy on her dresser which he wagered would be strong enough to mask her perfume. As he walked to it, however, he paused at the table where the maps yet lay, awaiting his expeditionary contribution. He could see on the most recent one the coastline where Krak-Kavar, now obliterated beyond recognition, had once stood. Then, smirking faintly, he picked up a pen, dipped it in the ink, and scratched an X over the decimated fortress. Above that, he wrote, in his slightly clumsy script,  _ Fox’s Grave. _

And that was it. His father’s story was finally done, and the old fox could at last rest in peace. For that reason alone Nick felt a sense of tranquility distil itself from the cloud of madness and doubt that had shadowed him this past month. 

But there was something else.

Though he could never know the truth, Nick did not think John Wilde had been the sort of mammal to let fear govern his course in life. Nor did he think that of his mother, whoever she had been. Both of them—one dead from birthpains, the other from betrayal—had charted their pathway to happiness and stuck to it, despite the shoals and shallows, the thunder and rain that threatened to wreck their vessel. And he knew that he needed to do the same.

He turned and looked over Judith’s sleeping form, the covers rising and falling with each slight breath, her paws tucked under her chin. At this moment, in this room, they were not captain and subordinate, or even rabbit and fox, but instead two exact pieces of a whole. Which made answering a pressing question that much easier.

_ If tomorrow you were an unchained mammal, would you run back to the freedom of the world’s vastness? Or would you rather die than let her out of your sight again? Tell it true; is she your pathway to happiness? _

The answer?  _ Yes. _

Give up the endless horizon.

Trade it for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let that be the final word on the matter—nothing is going to get in the way of their love. If this unstoppable force met an immovable object, it would bloody-well burst it into pieces, logical impossibility be damned.
> 
> And...we're not quite finished either, not yet. There'll be a final chapter coming tomorrow.


	30. Epilogue

_ John Wilde sprinted the length of the  _ Justicia’s  _ deck, pushing aside any mammal who failed to see him coming. Most, however, already knew or had guessed the impetus for his haste and gave him ample way, their eyes cast solemnly aside. He noticed them not; wild-eyed and staggering, he made for his quarters with single-minded purpose. His heart died in his breast before he’d even reached the door. He could smell blood on the air. _

_ He thrust his head inside, calling his wife’s name in shallow pants. A skunk named Joan, the midwife whose services he’d hired, spun at the intrusion and locked eyes with the horrified captain. _

_ “It’s too late,” she gasped. _

_ John looked past her to the bed where Emilia sat, propped against a pile of cushions, the once white sheet stained burgundy. Her eyes were shut, and her breath sucked in her throat like water down a mud-clogged gutter.. She looked frightfully weak. _

_ He went to her the way the dead might walk if walk they could. He knelt by the bed, mute with dread and blinded by tears, and in this state she opened her eyes and saw him and smiled and reached for him, trembling. _

_ “I’m sorry, John,” she rasped, laying her paw in his own. “It looks like we won’t be growing old together…” _

_ “How dare you,” he choked. “How dare you apologise to me. And what are you _ — _ a doctor, to know anything about medical diagnosis? Don’t be such a fool…” _

_ She said nothing in response, instead raising a sickly arm to slip the gold amulet out from behind the collar of her dress, her red-spattered cerements, and press it into his grasp. _

_ “Take this, John. This is what remains when I’m gone. Keep it with you, and I’ll be by your side always.” _

_ “I don’t need to carry you as a trinket,” John sobbed. “You’ll be there. You and our children will be there.” _

_ Behind his back, the midwife said, “Mr Wilde I tried, but something was terribly wrong; they were stillborn, and when she passed the first she began to bleed and I could not stop it…” _

_ He turned and looked at her, seeming to see her for the first time and yet strangely unaware of her presence, as if her words were disembodied proclamations from tyrannical heaven. “My children?” he stammered. She merely shook her head, and gestured to a basket in the corner of the room, a basket whose contents were wrapped in white linen and did not stir. _

_ Emilia called him back to her with a hoarse cough, and he looked on her, mouth hanging in wordless shock, squeezing her paw tightly, as if by force he could kink some hose through which her life was escaping. But she would have none of his melodrama; she smiled at him and whispered, “But John, look here.” _

_ Tucked up in her lap was a swaddle of cloth, and she peeled it open with her other paw to reveal one small kit, a tiny scruff of gore-streaked grey fur, snuffling quietly and clutching at the air in aimless search. John’s bloodshot eyes widened, and he looked back at her. _

_ “Our son…” he gasped. _

_ “Our son. Your son.” _

_ Hot jaws of pain viced her body, and she slumped back against the pillows, her eyes pinched shut, her breath suddenly coming half as fast, twice as weak. _

_ “Remember your promise John,” she croaked. “His destiny is his own. You’ll remember?” _

_ “Emilia please don’t leave me like this. Please don’t.” _

_ “Will you remember?” _

_ “I will. I’ll remember.” _

_ It could be counted on fingers, the breaths that she had left. She looked down at the kit in her embrace and smiled, proud rictus of a mother struck down by calamitous fate. _

_ “Nicholas Wilde,” she crooned. “Our son.” _

_ And, lying there in a pair of lifeless arms, oblivious to the hot salt rain on his forehead, the mewling kit opened its tiny blind eyes for the first time, and whined softly at the inscrutable world that was his. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, before anything else, I need to thank my ever-dedicated editor, Mersharr, who has been contributing to my work for over a year now. His persistent engagement has shaped my writing, shaped my ideas, encouraged reflection, challenged my thinking, and generally ensured that my stories, and this one in particular, are the very best possible versions they could be. I couldn’t ask for a better reviewer and confidant, and I got a good friend into the bargain. Thanks mate - here’s to another year of word-fixing.
> 
> I’m banging on about years a bit, and there’s a reason for that; by a sort of happy coincidence, the last chapter of The Hunt is going out on the same date that the first one went up last year. The bow on the finished product doesn’t get much neater than that. It doesn’t mean anything, but it does give me an interesting measure for how I spent the last 365 days. I don’t care as much about Nick and Judy as I did when I first started this fan-fiction malarkey, and I probably would have stopped if I hadn’t developed a fondness for my own versions of the characters and a desire to see their fates revealed. But mostly, I get just as much of a kick out of twisting and shaping words as I did way back at the beginning, and the little voice in my head that wonders what it would be like to do this as a career is getting louder and louder.
> 
> I'm pretty happy with how this story turned out, although, with the well-ground lenses of retrospect on my eyes, there are definitely things I'd like to change. I think, in the end, this story was just too big to hope for better; I followed all my usual rules and guidelines, about dropping hints and giving every turn of events significance and handling character development, but that was 85,000 words ago that I started laying those details down. I think I'll be adjusting the way I write and update, aiming for a complete story that I can edit as a whole, but I haven't decided yet. To continue as I have been creates just a little more anxiety than I'm comfortable with; it also means I'm essentially writing a story collaboratively with your past self, which is a weird sensation. 
> 
> So, what’s next? Who knows - one thing I’ve learned is that, if you’re writing for fun, then do it in a fun way, and that means writing what you feel like at the moment. And after a year of the Of Salt And Steel universe, I think I’m ready for a break. But don’t despair. There is definitely unfinished business here - treason to root out, bigotry to confront, justice to exact - and I won’t keep you waiting longer than I have to. If you like supplemental writing, then go and sub to ‘Behind Closed Doors’, which explores what Nick and Judith get up to behind those titular dividers. Otherwise, watch this space for updates sometime in the future.
> 
> And, of course, a huge thank you to everybody who read, commented, left kudos, criticised, complained, promoted or had anything to do with the story (special thanks to WildHopps who was on hand more than once to clarify facts about naval minutia). You guys don’t just make writing fun - you make it rewarding. It makes all the difference.


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